Esports: Tectonic's Cinderella run continues

Tectonic have proved their promising start to the second split of the 2018 OPL was no fluke with a 2-0 victory over The Chiefs Esports Club.

Tectonic finished at the bottom of the table during the first split this year but have turned their fortunes around.

Their win over the Chiefs comes after a 2-0 upset of Order earlier in the campaign and has put them in third spot in the eight-team league.

The undefeated Dire Wolves remain in top spot in the OPL while the Chiefs are in second place.

The OPL is the premier League of Legends competition in Australasia and features a range of home-grown gamers and international imports.

Despite being in trouble in the first game, Tectonic staged an epic four versus five fightback fightback during the weekend to claim the first game of the series and they finished the job in the next game.

This victory has shown Tectonic are genuine playoff contenders and it is more remarkable considering they've played the first four weeks of the split with a sub.

Ross "Value" Luppino, an import from the US, is yet to gain clearance to compete, which has left his bot lane carry position open.

Once Luppino is ready to roll the team will gain further momentum as they progress towards the finals.

Top Laner Dan "Papryze" Francis said the team had brought a new energy to this split.

"When I think about last season and what carried over I don't think it was much. We were an incredibly inexperienced team and since I was straight out of the [second division] OCS I had very little experience on how to play the game at an OPL level," he said.

"The things that did carry over, however, were the large amount of individual training provided by the club that I have with my personal coach Beniona and my bootcamp success in Korea."

Francis said the win over the Chiefs came as a good surprise.

"It's honestly indescribable. It seemed almost impossible to take down the titans that are the Chiefs, but I still had faith that we could take a game off of them.
"I just wouldn't of imagined that it'd be me doing work, let alone it happening twice. I think we are a great chance for the rest of the split but I want to clean up my mistakes, regardless, and perform better."

Lachlan "Sybol" Civil, who plays as a jungler, said the team was coming together well.
"Considering we've been using a sub for the first four weeks, it's pretty astounding that we've found ourselves third on the ladder by picking up two 2-0 wins against two super teams. It feels like as a team we've got quite a good recipe for learning and improving and I'm confident and excited about the rest of the split."