SC2ITL Division 1 Group A - A battle to stay at the top.

With the end of the SC2ITL Season 2 Group Stage fast approaching there are only a few games remaining to be played - yet the teams are almost inseparable in Group A. The difference between 4th and 9th place is a match score of 6-3 and 5-5. The difference of one match victory somewhere in the season is what is defining whether the teams will end up in the playoffs or having to re-qualify for the First Division for Season 3.

The bottom four teams of the Group will be knocked down into the Second Division, though they will have two attempts to re-qualify in the Invite Only Qualifier as well as the Open Qualifier for Season 3. The teams in immediate trouble are Karnage eSports, Kaos Latin Gamers and PunchLine! as they only sit on 5 match wins. That being said KLG and PLine both have two games yet to play, while Karnage only have one. The matter is made more interesting because Karnage's final match will be against PunchLine.

It's a must-win for Karnage. If they lose to punchline they drop to a 5-6 score and would need Kaos Latin Gamers to lose both of their remaining games against ESC and MiA. It's never good to leave your fate in other peoples hands. What's really amazing though is if you consider another scenario which could occur.

Imagine Karnage beat PunchLine - this takes them to a 6-5 score. PunchLine could then beat MiA to also move into a 6-5 score. KLG could then also beat MiA, which would give themselves a 6-4 score (with ESC yet to play) and would put MiA at a 6-5 score. Because the current map differences of these teams are about the same, this would almost definitely mean MiA would be demoted as their map score would only go down while others went up.

Honestly this isn't too much of a stretch to happen. We have seen all of the teams in Group A are able to take matches from one another. It's going to be fascinating to see the final order of these teams. Nobody is safe in this final week or two. Everything is on the line and teams are going to have to put out everything they have to stay alive.