Ninetails eliminates Xipto Esports GC in Pacific finals rematch

Ninetails Ninetails Korea Unranked h4ste Park Ju-hwi (박주희) defeated Xipto Esports GC Xipto Esports GC Inactive yxqme Surassawadee Khongpechdee capriciouS Mary Grace Sabado PIETY Kim De Guia Kon Loraine Pagente grahams Leanne Ti-in 2-1 in the first elimination match of the Game Changers 2025 Championship, sending their fellow Pacific representatives home and staying alive on their home turf in Seoul.

For Ninetails, this match was for revenge as well as survival, as Xipto had won both of their previous encounters in the upper final and the grand final of GC Pacific.

Xipto selected Pearl to open the series, which came as a surprise considering that Ninetails had an undefeated 11-0 record on the map. While Xipto took an early 3-0 lead after winning the first bonus, Ninetails quickly demonstrated why they were undefeated with 12 consecutive round wins, running the score all the way up to 12-3. The Korean squad could do no wrong on their attack side as they patiently punished Xipto's constant attempts to push out into A main and added in aggressive set pieces of their own with their ultimates.

Xipto only managed to take one more round before Ninetails promptly ended the affair 13-4. FullMoon led her side on Vyse as the one most often in position to punish Xipto's aggression, producing 19 kills, 305 ACS, and 204 ADR, and was only outdone by grahams on the other side who put up 21 kills and 331 ACS on Yoru despite the loss.

The second map was Bind. For a moment, Ninetails seemed primed to carry their momentum from Pearl forward as they opened the map with a full eco win in the second round followed by an ace from DaNa in the third.

However, Xipto showed resilience, rallying with an eco of their own in round 7 followed by a decisive B rush in round 8, turning a 3-3 deadlock to 7-3 for their first lead in the series since the beginning of Pearl. They maintained control from there with a second pistol win, widening the gap to 11-5. Ninetails strung together a few rounds to make things slightly dangerous, but Xipto ultimately closed the map in 13-8 fashion. The Duelists grahams and yxqme led from the front, putting up 19 kills apiece and combining for nine first bloods between them.

Both teams brought out unique compositions for the decider on Split. Xipto brought out Veto with a composition featuring both Astra and Omen, while Ninetails opted for an aggressive double-Duelist double-Controller composition that lacked any kind of Initiator.

In the end, Ninetails' gameplan proved superior. They leaned heavily into overwhelming site hits on their attack, finding repeated successes for an early 5-0 lead that bloomed into a 9-3 half. By comparison, Xipto struggled to adapt, often finding themselves in disadvantageous retakes after the opposition ran over their anchor players.

The final nail in the coffin was round 14, where Ninetails once again won an eco after losing the pistol and eventually closed out Split 13-5. 332 in particular was a menace on Yoru, putting up a 22/9/1 KDA to top the series 53/36/9.

With this result, Ninetails survive and bring Xipto's year to an end, but their path forward is steep; their opponent in the next round of the lower bracket tomorrow will be the GCC 2024 runners-up MIBR GC MIBR GC Brazil Rank #8 bstrdd Paula Naguil lissA Giulia Lissa srN Nicolas Niederauer sayuri Camila Obam melissa Melissa Souza .