Echo Fox obliterated Clutch Gaming in the first series of the NA Gauntlet. Next up for them is TSM and the winner of that match will face Cloud9 on Sunday. The winner of that match will earn the third and final NA Worlds spot.

Team Liquid and 100 Thieves have already qualified for Worlds. Joining them will be either TSM, Cloud9 or Echo Fox. All three teams are worthy of the final spot but only one can take it.

Cloud9 are certainly the overall favorites. They had an unbelievable late run in the summer split and looked solid in playoffs until they ran into Doublelift and Team Liquid. Plenty of people will also be looking at TSM as their favorites based on the team’s prior experience. Though the team had a subpar split and year, they have more experienced veterans than just about anyone else in North America.

Then there’s Echo Fox. With Huni, Smoothie and Dardoch, they have one of the highest talent ceilings in NA, but they’ve also proven in the past to be wildly unreliable. Two possible explanation for that late in the split were Huni’s illness and the newness of Smoothie and Lost. But in their match against Clutch, Huni looked like he was in peak form and the chemistry between Lost, Smoothie and the rest of the team appeared to be less of a liability now that they’ve had nearly a month extra practice together.

Cloud9 and TSM will still be the favorites regardless, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone if Echo Fox are able to pull off the upsets

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