Knights Arena VALORAMPAGE Quarterfinals and Round of 16 Recap

The Knights Arena VALORAMPAGE - Main Event quarterfinals and round of 16 have come to a close as we move on to the semifinals of the tournament.

The round of 16 saw a number of interesting matchups, one of them being Cloud9’s Anthony "vanity" Malaspina facing off against his rebuilt former team Version1. The latter were beaten convincingly and Mitch "mitch" Semago laid down the law with a 1.71 rating and 339 ACS. A new look Kansas City Pioneers continued their positive momentum by overcoming DarkZero Esports and red-hot Akrew took another victim in Complexity as they booked their spot in the quarterfinals.

Title favorites Cloud9 Blue made quick work of Akrew in the first quarterfinal, beating them 13-6 on Bind and 13-7 on Ascent. The loss finally ended Akrew’s ridiculous match and tournament winning streak that began late last year. Erick "Xeppaa" Bach stood out with a 1.46 rating and 38 kills, but everyone on Cloud9 Blue had their impact moments in the match. The same could not be said for Corbin "C0M" Lee, as the former Complexity man had a series to forget with only 14 kills over both maps. vanity and co. will now have their sights set firmly for the grand finals as they prepare to face Ghost Gaming in their upcoming semifinal match.

The aforementioned Ghost Gaming pulled out a true Jekyll and Hyde performance in their win against Kansas City Pioneers, claiming Breeze easily with a 13-5 scoreline and then narrowly stealing Ascent 16-14 after a hard-fought overtime. The former had just added Mohamed Amine "Johnqt" Ouarid and Brock "brawk" Somerhalder to their lineup a week ago and the moves seem to have paid off, with the Moroccan leading the scoreboard with 48 kills and a 1.26 rating. The Atlanta-based organization face their toughest task yet in the semifinals as they go head to head against Cloud9 Blue.

NRG Esports faced off against Built By Gamers in a close-fought encounter which saw the former pick up a 2-1 victory. Both teams showed their proficiencies on their map picks, with NRG winning Icebox 13-6 and Ascent 13-7, while BBG stunned them 13-5 on Split. The last time the two organizations faced each other was eight months ago, and even though they look completely different since then, NRG managed to continue their head-to-head advantage over them. The Los Angeles-based organization’s form remains really good since the addition of talismanic veteran James "hazed" Cobb, who joined from TSM in November last year. It was the youngsters who did the damage this time around however, with Daniel "eeiu" Vucenovic and Sam "s0m" Oh posting a 1.22 and 1.17 rating respectively. With the win, NRG Esports go in as favorites in their semifinal tie against Renegades.

The match to end the day was Renegades going up against Built By Gamers Academy, and while the academy side did put up a good fight, they were beaten 2-0 in the end. Both maps went close and BBG Academy were forced to pull off a comeback two times but they couldn’t, with Renegades winning Haven 13-11 and Icebox 13-9 to wrap up the series. Alex "lin" Gariépy was key for the Detroit-based organization, with 47 kills and a 1.40 rating on Jett. Renegades now move on to the semifinals, where they will hope to overcome NRG en route to grab their first tournament win of the year.

The semifinals schedule for Knights Arena VALORAMPAGE is as follows:

Match 1: Cloud9 vs Ghost Gaming at 2:00 PM PST / 5:00 PM EST

Match 2: NRG Esports vs Renegades at 4:30 PM PST / 7:30 PM EST

Matches will be broadcasted live at the Knights twitch channel and the Knights Arena Twitch channel.