ESL Major Series Season 5

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Season 4	ESL Major Series

ESL Major Series Season 5 (Overview)

Elimination Bracket

ESL Major Series Season 5
League Information
Organizer:	ESL
Start Date:	2009-11-09
End Date:	2010-02-01
Links:	[{{{tlpd}}} TLPD]
Player Breakdown
Number of Players:	16
Protoss Players:	5
Terran Players:	4
Zerg Players:	7
Winners
IdrA
Strelok
Koget
Maps
Destination
Heartbreak Ridge
Colosseum
Medusa
Outsider
Byzantium

About ESL Majors Series season 5

The questions before ESL Major Series season 5 were many. Would the returning champion IdrA come back and defend his title from season 4, or will Ret get his revenge after falling in the final? Or would we see the return of White-Ra or Mondragon who got eliminated early the previous season? Or would Kolll ride on the successwave from WCG 2009 and take it home?
The questions are many and gave us, the fans, a great foundation for another great season of ESL.

Season 4 finalists

Suprisingly both 4th season finalists managed not to qualify for the playoffs by winning their groups. Ret lost to Draco in two straight games on Destination and Heartbreak Ridge complaining of the lag issues between korea and europe. He was forced to play a relegation game versus Dreiven (result pending).

IdrA also lost in two straight games against his opponent Ace who opted for a very aggressive style of play with lings, beating IdrA with Muta-Ling game one and 5pool game two. The similarities doesnt end there, IdrA also finished second in his group and was forced to play a relegation game versus White-Ra (result pending).

Groupstage

Players

Two players were seeded directly into the groupstage, these two players were last years finalists IdrA and Ret, the rest of the players had to qualify via 6 online tournaments.
The players in the groupstage of ESL Major Series season 5 were:

	Avi-Love	Ret	Mondragon	ToT)Ace(	iG.kogeT	XiaOzI	Kolll
	Dreiven	Arew	Draco	MaNa	White-Ra
	IdrA	iG.AerO	Strelok	Morrow

Group winners

The winners of each group automatically advanced to the playoff brackets.
Group A Winner:iG.kogeT
Group B Winner:ToT)Ace(
Group C Winner:Mondragon
Group D Winner:Draco
Note that while )ToT(Ace and IdrA seemingly ended up with the same amount of points (with )ToT(Ace not playing his game vs. iG.AerO) )ToT(Ace advanced due to winning his groupstage match versus IdrA.

Relegation matches

The 2nd and 3rd place finishers in each group had to play one BO3 relegation match to advance to the playoff bracket.
The games, and results, were as follows:

A	Kolll (2nd)	0:2	IdrA (3rd)
B	Morrow (2nd)	0:2	White-Ra (3rd)
C	Strelok (2nd)	2:1	Dreiven (3rd)
D	Ret (2nd)	<	MaNa (3rd)