2Game Esports 2Game Esports Brazil Rank #5 Brinks ambitioN Gabriel Lima frz Leandro Gomes has won Americas Ascension and earned a spot in VCT Americas for the 2025 season. They defeated M80 M80 North America Rank #1 Boni gMd Anthony Guimond Derrek Derrek Ha alvinboy Alvin Hong Pa1nt Amarri Peak in the grand finals to become the fourth Brazilian representative in VCT.

A Cinderella story is complete.

Six teams across the Americas region qualified to compete for Ascension. These teams consisted of the top two from each of the North American, Brazilian, and Latin American subregions. Competing for Americas Ascension were:

Group Stage

Going into the tournament, the North American teams, and especially M80, were considered heavy favorites. In the previous year, the two representatives from NA cruised past the South American competition and met each other in the grand finals. Things would not be quite so easy for them this year.

While M80 would finish the group stage with a flawless 5-0 record, they were not met without challenge, with numerous map losses and overtime conversions needed to win. The other five teams were all evenly matched, with no clear hierarchy emerging among them. The second NA team, TSM, would disappoint, as they were eliminated in last place, only managing one win. Argentina's All Knights would come second, finding three wins, only losing to M80 and their regional rivals in Reta. The other three teams would all end with a 2-3 record, although tiebreakers would place Reta at fifth, eliminating them from playoff contention. This left both Brazilian teams to qualify for playoffs, with their top seeded Galorys even bouncing back from a 0-3 start to the tournament.

Playoffs

Playoffs would start with a shocker, as the opening match saw Brazil's second seed 2Game Esports dominate the then undefeated M80 in 2-0 fashion. This game was followed by All Knights' win over Galorys, where in both maps, All Knights would find massive round streaks to win. This included winning ten rounds in a row to overcome a 4-12 deficit on Bind. 2Game would continue their momentum in the upper finals, where they defeated All Knights 2-1 to send them to the lower bracket to face M80, who had eliminated Galorys.

The best-of-five lower finals started with All Knights domination, as they held M80 to a total of seven rounds across the first two maps. However, M80's zander would come alive in map three, putting up 31 kills to keep M80 alive. From there, the rest of M80 would wake up and roll over All Knights on the final two maps, successfully completing the reverse sweep, and earning a shot at redemption in the grand finals.

The grand finals would also be a five map affair, but none of the maps were particularly close. 2Game would take Sunset and Haven, while M80 would win on Icebox and Abyss. However, 2Game's two map ban advantage meant that the final decider map would be Bind, a map M80 has only played one time in their history, that being against The Guard in the grand final of 2023's Ascension tournament. M80's inexperience showed, as 2Game would completely dismantle them, jumping out to a 10-2 score in the first half. M80 would find a couple rounds in the second half, but it wasn't long before 2Game secured their Ascension victory.

This is now M80's second year in a row falling short in the grand finals of Ascension.

Zap , put up a stellar performance in the grand finals, with a 1.34 rating across the series. As the IGL of the squad, he will lead his young and hungry teammates into new territory as they enter VCT.