The tourney started back on June 18th with 32 teams entering the FREEdom Tourney. As there wasn't enough interest in putting up a registration fee, the tournament was free to enter, with a small cash pot of $250 thrown in by CEVO to make it a little more interesting. The winner will be decided on the evening of Wednesday August 27th.

After 9 weeks of tournament competition the final match features just Cause project vs. Rising Storm.

Round 7 Recaps

just Cause project already had a birth in the finals, and overRated was set to play in the semifinals where they would face the last team standing of the other 4 remaining. The map to be played in this 7th round was Mout McKenna.



Rising Storm vs Conviction

Not too long before the match took place (less than a week), some Conviction members joined up with Mediocrity. This left Conviction with only 2 members (Unknown and Xtopherus), who had no choice but to forfeit this match against Rising Storm. Result: rS > con 1-0 by FF.

Mediocrity vs Lost Cause

Lost Cause took advantage of a weaker draw to get to this point, but it still was a good run for them to get to the Final 6 teams. They were overmatched here against an invite caliber team of Mediocrity, yet they still managed to keep it close as shown by the 3-4 half-time score. In the end Mediocrity took control of the match and took 4 of the next 5 rounds to clinch the victory. Result: med > Lc 8-4.

Round 8 Recap

Only 4 teams remained at this point, the winner of this match on Pipeline would face overRated in the next round.



Mediocrity vs Rising Storm

Rising Storm had something to prove after suffering a loss to Mediocrity in the CAL Playoffs where med refused rS's request for a reschedule since rS couldn't field their best roster on the default date. As Pipeline is a map that Mediocrity often struggles on, and Rising Storm normally excels on this was indeed a chance to get revenge. In the end Rising Storm took it to them and dominating the match. It was so bad that med's top player med!chrones finished the match with a 1-9 kill-death ratio, and was ridiculed for it. Hey, everyone has a bad game once in a while. Result rS > med 8-2.

Round 9 Recap



overRated vs Rising Storm

The winner of this match would go on to face just Cause project in the Finals. overRated was still stinging from the recent playoff loss in TWL where they were beat by IceNine. Weapons Cache is a hugely defensive sided map, but good teams are capable of taking rounds on assault against other good teams, it requires good timing and working together to take out the awaiting defenders. You have to act fast and play smart though, since it's one of the easiest maps to clutch on defense even with only 1 or 2 members left. overRated started on defense and played very strong, but rS managed to take 2 rounds out of 7. Heading to assault Rising Storm played very strong, and clutched most situations where oR had man advantages. overRated was only able to take 1 round on assault, and were haulted in their attempt to force overtime. Result rS > oR 8-6.

Round 10 (Finals) Preview

It's been 5 weeks since jCp had played a match in this tournament. They didn't exactly have an easy draw to get to the finals, but they managed to win their first 5 matches, including 2 overtime wins, which gave them a spot in the finals. Their victories came against rS 8-7 OT, infamous neg 8-5, nH by FF, con 8-2, and oR 8-7 OT. Since rS got bumped to the loser bracket in the 1st round after losing in OT to jCp, they had a very long road to get here, winning 8 matches in a row.



just Cause project vs Rising Storm

If there's such thing as momentum in a tournament then Rising Storm definitely has that momentum right now based on their 8 match winning streak leading up to this one. just Cause project hasn't faced anyone since mid July and although they won all 5 matches they played, they could be "cold" going into this one. But, since there are other leagues going on, momentum may not play much of a factor afterall, considering jCp has also been playing in the CAL Invite playoffs. The other factor which could play against jCp is the map, Collapsed Tunnel. jCp is still definitely capable of performing well on tunnel, but it's a rarety since it's one of their worst maps, if not the worst. In the end, jCp always works hard on improving their game, and making adjustments where necessary. The 1st match on tunnel is this tournament, they actually lost to New Era Gaming, but some rounds were overturned in jCp's favor when it was proven that neg was exploiting. Rising Storm showed they are a menace on this map when they dominated dropouts by a score of 8-1 back in round 2 of this tourney. If jCp can get their timing down perfect they have a chance of winning this one. Although the edge should really go to rS, jCp will more than likely put up one of their best performances on this map.

Prediction: rS > jCp 8-6

If this prediction holds true, this will give just Cause project their first loss in the double elimination tournament. The question that remains unanswered at this point is whether or not the two teams would have to play a second map to determine the actual Champions. As CEVO only announced 1 map for the finals, the speculation is that the winner in this final match on Collapsed Tunnel will be claimed the Champions of the tournament and will take home the prize of $250.