Budding rivals T1 and Quincy Crew are on a collision course in the upper bracket semifinals of the ESL One Summer 2021 on Friday night, June 18 (PH time).
The best-of-three match is set at 11 p.m., with the Southeast Asian kings led by Filipino captain-offlaner Carlo "Kuku" Palad as well as mid laner Karl "Karl" Jayme renewing their rivalry against their North American counterparts in the recently-concluded WePlay AniMajor.
It could be recalled that T1 took down Quincy Crew, 2-1, in the AniMajor's upper bracket semifinals that saw mid laner Quinn "Quinn" Callahan pull his hair out of frustration at the end of the series.
Coming off a third-place finish in the AniMajor, Kuku and his crew backed by the renowned South Korean esports organization started their ESL campaign with a 2-0 sweep over European team Vikin.gg in the upper bracket round 2 on Thursday night.
QC, for its part, pulled off a 2-1 reverse sweep against Tundra Esports to arrange a grudge rematch against T1.
Facing off in the other upper bracket pairing are Alliance and Virtus.pro while squaring off in the lower bracket are Team Nigma versus OG and AS Monaco Gambit against Vikin.gg.
Team Secret, Team Liquid, Tundra and Team Unique suffered early exits in the tournament that stakes a prize pool of $400,000 (P19.3 million), with the champion bringing home $175,000 (P8.4 million).
The ESL One Summer is serving as a great warm-up for T1 and the other teams which will vie for the Aegis of Champions and the lion's share of the $40 million (P1.9 billion) prize pool in The International 10 slated August in Stockholm, Sweden.