Three days of wild card weekend are ahead of us. That means three days of previewing great playoff matchups. We’re here to give you a glimpse of what you’ll see for every series happening this weekend. Here are all the Master League matchups happening today, July 23rd.
Doubles
Pirates (2) vs. Bulls (7) 10:00 PM on mlesportsgg3
The Pirates and the Bulls are a story of two balanced teams. Both have made their run to the playoffs while not leaning too much on one player. ESTO, Skyler, and Astrologuy have been the players finishing the campaign for the Bulls this season each putting up over a 4.0 MVPR with Astrologuy averaging an impressive 5.76. The Pirates on the other side have five players with at least 20 games played. It’s also notable that four of those players were Pirates in season 11 and have had multiple seasons to build up chemistry. The pirates could put out any combination of players and perform well in the post-season. The team may lean on the experience of Crey2k or look to their star scorer in Speedy. Preparing to play the Pirates will be a challenge for any team.
Lightning (2) vs. Sabres (7) 9:00 pm on mlesportsgg
Getting one player in the top 10 for goals scored in Master League this season was a challenging feat. Having two of them means your team is likely to run up quite a few high-scoring games in the series. Both the Lightning and the Sabres were the only two teams to have two players in the top 10 and they will be facing off in the first round. This matchup is sure to produce some offensive fireworks. For the Sabres, Foam finished 2nd in goals with 97 and A1Andyx finished 10th with 70 goals. The Lightning’s Jrdn and AKAIceBorg finished 7th and 8th with 76 and 75 goals respectively. While both Foam and Jrdn have also put up impressive numbers in saves and assists, the real story in this matchup is the shooting. This series may come down to who has the most impressive accuracy on the day.
Standard
Elite (2) vs. Outlaws (7) 11:00 pm on mlesportsgg
The last wild card spots often scrape by just one game ahead of other teams and as a reward have to face off against a two-seed that is most likely playing very well heading into the postseason. The Outlaws match against the Elite is maybe the most obvious case of an underdog in the first round. The Elite seem to be on form in the last two weeks, going 10-0 in their last two series with a goal differential of +26 over those two series. The Outlaws meanwhile, were 35 and 30 on the outside looking in when a last week NCP gave them another chance at the postseason. Despite the unorthodox finish, the Outlaws have hope in SoloMan and Motions who have averaged 3.21 and 3.65 MVPRs respectively. So maybe there’s hope for this David against the Goliaths of the Elite.
Express (2) vs. Jets/Aviators (7) 10:00 pm on mlesportsgg
The Express finished their last three series on a 12 and 3 run to secure the 2nd seed in the conference. They have a solid roster that’s capable of holding off powerful offenses. Add to that an accurate shooter like Luke_, who was 3rd overall in goals scored, and a passer like Poobi3 who was 2nd in assists and you have a team with a lot of playoff potential. On the other side, we have a very interesting scenario. Both the Aviators and Jets finished the season tied up on all tiebreakers. So in order to determine the playoff team a best of 1 game will be played. That’s right a best of 1. At the time of writing this, the outcome of that match has yet to be announced but I can say that whoever wins will have a long road to go.
Those are the series that you will see on day one of the Master League wild card round. Be sure to stop in throughout the weekend for more previews of this weekend’s matches and tune into all our twitch channels to catch all the MLE action.
