Among Us Invitational 2022

### Overview

The Among Us Invitational 2022 was the most recent and biggest tournament to date. The tournament saw a record breaking 16 players seeking to win it all and make the title their own. For the first time in tournament history the games would be happen at dedicated venues across the United States of America. The five hosting cities were: New York City, New York, Miami, Florida, Los Angeles, California, Las Vegas, Nevada, and Houston, Texas. The tournament saw Wes take his first title in Grand Tournament history with a literal coin flip victory over runner up, Miindy winning the series 2-1.

The tournament also saw returning champion Philip seek to defend his title and main stays in Bongo, Curry, Teddy, and Candy. The tournament also saw the introduction to many new players such as Killzone and HedgeAMax along with many others. While many new timelines came into play, many old ones came back as the fight between the two GOATS was in full swing. The dark horse run of Rue and the disappointing run of Killzone. With all the story lines the tournament it was destined to be an amazing tournament story wise.

### Format

The tournament was split up into a group stage and a knock out stage. The group stage was four groups of four and the knock out stage was a double elimination bracket with players being seeded into it according to their performance in the group stage. The top two players in each group would be placed into the winner's/upper bracket with an extra life and the bottom two players in each group would be placed into the loser's/lower bracket with no extra life. Players would then continue to play until they had been defeated in the lower bracket and completely knocked of the tournament until only one player was left standing.

## Drawing of the Groups

Unlike most other tournaments, this one was planned in advance giving fans and players time to prepare and know what was going to happen. And time to make predictions on how the tournament would go. A week before the tournament groups were crafted by assigning each player that signed up to four different tiers. Each group got one player from each tier. Tier 1 players were the best players and tier 4 were the weakest players. The players were put into each tier based upon previous records and skill assumption.

Tier one players included Wes, Miindy, Philip and Teddy. Miindy and Wes were clear picks for tier one for previous records and their agreed upon skill level being a cut above the rest. Philip was picked as he was the defending champion. And Teddy was picked as he was in the higher end of players and had the best overall record compared to similar players. Tier 2 players included Candy, Bashar, Curry and Killzone. Tier 3 players included Stefflon, Plazma, Rue, and Flipper. And finally tier 4 players included Sylvia Temod, Sam, Roborishi, and HedgeAMax.

Player tiers
 Tier 2
 Tier 3
 Tier 4

After giving each player a tier, groups were divided out and a week before the tournament each group was posted and the map they would be playing on and where their matches would be taking place.

Group A: Sam, Rue, Teddy, and Bashar. Matches would be played on Vertigo and taking place in Houston.

Group B: Curry, Plazma, Roborishi, and Philip. Matches would be played on Lake and taking place in Miami.

Group C: HedgeAMax, Miindy, Killzone, and Stefflon. Matches would be played on Inferno and taking place in Los Angeles.

Group D: Sylvia Temod, Flipper, Candy, and Wes. Matches would be played on Shortdust and taking place in Las Vegas.

## Expectations Going Into The Tournament

This was the tournament of Miindy vs Wes as players and fans made predictions for the group stage. There were questions on whether or not Philip could defend his title as Curry, even with is previous runs, was the favorite among most to win his group. Group D was consider the group of death as Candy and Wes were seen as the two clear favorites giving little chance to Flipper or Temod to be able to make upper bracket. Group A on the other hand was the group of life as it felt to most that it could be anyone's group. Group C felt like an easy to predict as everyone and their mothers expected Miindy to easily take first place and Killzone to follow up with that, it turned into a mess with close games and upsets.

The highest rated players participating were in rough order: Wes, Miindy, Teddy, Candy, Bashar, and Philip. And while some would live up to it, some would be knocked out early as others took their place.

## The Group Stage

#### Group A

Going in with the expectations of it being anyone's game it played mostly to what people expected. Teddy took main stage going undefeated in the group easily pushing his opponents to the side besides his match against Sam. While the game went into multiple overtimes, it was purely due to Teddy trolling and wanting to make everyone watching, want to tear out their eyes. While all eyes were kept in, there were countless that were close if it weren't for the on standby medics. Sam on the other hand wasn't able to pick up a single game going winless. The fight was left between Rue and Bashar to take the second seed and Rue was able to take it with a 9-4 win over Bashar to get a trip to the upper bracket in Miami.

#### Group B

With the return of the reigning champion, most wondered if he could once again continue this and prove his run at the Among Us Invitational 2021 was no fluke. For Philip his run started with a loss against Curry 4-9. It was his first defeat ever but he would quickly follow it up with a victory over Roborishi winning 9-3 then bested that with a 9-2 win over Plazma to finish 2-1. Curry being the only one to defeat him went undefeated beating out Plazma and Roborishi only dropping 7 rounds in total in all his games in group finishing 3-0. Roborishi was unable to pick up a game in the group stage scoring only 3 rounds with the help of Miindy. Plazma taking third place with a 1-2 scoreline putting decent fights against all his opponents.

#### Group C

Another group where things turned out as expected with only one big difference. Most predicted Killzone to be second seed coming out, third at the worst. But he choked in the group stage going winless putting up his best fight against Miindy losing 6-9. Miindy on the other hand, with the opening game against Killzone being so close for her liking, felt threatened from the start. And while she was able to go 3-0, it wasn't easy. She barely took number one seed beating out Stefflon 9-7 after buying the auto to win out the last two rounds. HedgeAMax, expected to go silently into the night not putting up any kind of fight, started off like that. Losing back to back games only winning a single round. Going into the final game against Killzone, everyone still expected it to be a easy win for Killzone but didn't turn out like that. HedgeAMax won 9-5 to take the third seed below Stefflon.

#### Group D

The group of death. Candy's and Wes's for the taking and they did exactly that. Wes not dropping a single round besides to Candy. 27-4 for Wes round wise. 22-16 for Candy but he was still a strong second seed only losing rounds mainly to messing around. The fight was between Temod and Flipper for third seed and even that was easy. The pecking order was clear to see by the end of all the groups. Even with only one win Flipper won over Temod 9-5 for that spot. Wes left the group as the tournament's clear favorite, Candy following up as a scary second seed to match up with. Flipper and Temod weren't seen as titans in the lower bracket but Flipper did have more going for her.

## Knock Out Stage

#### Upper Bracket Round 1

The first round of the upper bracket, played in Miami, saw all first seeds take down their second seeds. With Curry taking down Rue 9-3. Miindy following it up with a 9-6 victory over Candy. Wes and Teddy both scoring victories taking down both Philip and Stefflon both being 9-5 matches. With all the one seeds moving on, four players still remained in the tournament that were undefeated all facing off against each other. The match between Miindy and Candy saw the birth of the fan loved "Get a load of this guy." as Miindy would say it after every round she won.

#### Lower Bracket Round 1

The first round of the lower bracket, played in Las Vegas, was the first games that actually saw the exit of players from the tournament. The first match saw a tournament favorite, Bashar up against Temod. Bashar was highly favored and he won easily winning 9-2. The next match saw Killzone vs Plazma, with Killzone tanking it was really time for him to prove himself but he wasn't able to do it was Plazma took the game convincingly 9-6. It was followed up by HedgeAMax being knocked out by Roborishi after HedgeAMax 2.0 came out. With the final match Sam taking care of business with Flipper winning 9-3. This was his first tournament win ever, it was also his first game to be a favorite in.

With the first knock out round: HedgeAMax, Sylvia Temod, Killzone and Flipper were all eliminated getting placed 13th to 16th.

#### Lower Bracket Round 2

The next set of elimination matches were once again played in Las Vegas and saw four more players leave the tournament. A surprise early exit by Stefflon after Bashar was able to take him on and win 9-5. It was followed up by defending champion Philip winning over Plazma 9-4 to stay alive and a possible run back from last year. While questions about his play were coming up, he still had a chance to make it happen, only time would tell. Candy then followed it up with a troll match win over Roborishi 9-4. The round was warped up with Rue taking down Sam 9-5 with a rematch from Group A. Rue would be the last remaining new face in the entire tournament.

After the second knock out round: Roborishi, Sam, Stefflon, and Plazma would all see their way out getting placed 9th to 12th.

#### Lower Bracket Round 3

Marking the final matches to be played in Las Vegas, the round saw Philip take on Bashar and Rue up against Candy. Starting for the latter, Candy was the clear favorite and was quoted before the match, "I'll make this quick." and he stood by his word winning a perfect game against Rue. But before that game we saw the defending champion continue on after taking out Bashar 9-2. The round was two back to back claps.

With the round conclusion it saw Bashar and Rue gone making it into the top half of the tournament placing 7th to 8th.

#### Upper Bracket Round 2

The first games to take place in New York City, New York. The round saw all undefeated players match up against each other but hadn't seen the two tournament favorites match up just yet. But both favorites in Miindy and Wes won their games with Miindy with the closer 9-5 and Wes with the clean 9-1. Teddy and Curry both were knocked into the lower bracket.

#### Lower Bracket Round 4

With the best of the best all meeting up it was no longer any filler matches as the round held the longest real game between Curry and Philip. The matches were played on Train and this led to many quiet rounds that explode with action and went back to silence as quickly as the action started. With Philip's chances of defending his title still in the question, only a few more rounds to make finals. But standing in his way now was Curry. And before Curry was easily able to beat Philip but this time the game was neck and neck going into multiple overtimes. Finally a winner was found as Curry pulled ahead winning 15-13. Ending Philip's chances of winning another title. The next match was another close back and forth game but didn't need to go to overtime as Teddy was defeated by Candy 9-7.

With the conclusion of the round, Philip and Teddy were both out of the running for the title placing 5th to 6th.

#### Loser's Semi-Finals

Now in the top four, Candy and Curry were both looking for a route to the grand finals and only had two games in the way. But first they had to face off against each other, It was hoped by the fans for a close match but Candy took the game easily winning 9-4. He was now in the Loser's finals and only one game away from making grand finals. This was also the farthest he had ever made it in a tournament. During the match, Africa united as it believed in Curry's outrageous claim he could win the tournament. They quickly fell apart as the Africa began a civil war as Curry started losing and completely fell apart. It was due to him that Africa is broken up and in ruins. Curry is not a good person sadly.

With Curry's exit to the tournament, he took sole possession of 4th place.

#### Winner's Finals

Finally it was match everyone was waiting for as the two tournament favorites clashed against each other. It was Wes, now split in two, vs Miindy. The game was a back and forth on Overpass as each round went to the other. Finally on round 16 Wes broke that and took the game 9-7 knocking Miindy down and giving her, her first lost of the tournament.

#### Loser's Finals

Loser's finals was the last game in Los Angeles as Miindy returned to the city and continued her undefeated streak in the city winning over Candy 9-2. Bashar subbed in after Candy forfeit the game. With the ending of the game, Candy finished the tournament with his best results to date placing 3rd place. And with the conclusion of the game the grand finals was set.

## Grand Finals

The most important CSGO tournament of the year's grand finals was how people expected it to shape up. Everyone and their mothers could have predicted this finals Wes vs Miindy, the two Goats. The matches took place in New York City, New York and had thousands of fans coming to watch in person with millions watching online. The grand finals was a best of 3 played on three different maps decided by the two players. Coming into the series, even though both were of goated status. Miindy had never beat Wes in a game now being 0-3 against him. She was an amazing player but a huge underdog as this felt like Wes's tournament for the taking. The grand finals was a 5v5 with Wes and Miindy both being team captains.

The first match took the teams to Nuke. What started off as a close match quickly got out of reach for Miindy as they were down 9-6 at the half and were only able to pick up one round in the second half losing 7-16. Some notable events in the match was Miindy's kill lines, the Nuke cult, the kicking of Seabaer, the great betrayal, and the business deals. Miindy's kill lines were her most effective strats. All players would follow her everywhere until they found their first target. Once spotted they would kill them then defend the area around the dead body and play around that. Bashar and/or the bomb carrier somehow were the always the first person they spotted. The great betrayal was when a player on Miindy's team joined Wes as the game was going to be a 4v6 in favor of Miindy purely because it would be funny so why not. And the kicking of Seabaer was a silly moment where Sam made a shitty fucking joke and team killed Miindy causing him to get kicked. A player named Seabaer tried to join Miindy's team to fill the gap but they instantly kicked him due to it being Seabaer. But with Wes picking up the game in a very convincing fashion many wondered if Miindy would ever be able to beat Wes, let alone make the series close. The game also saw the most gamers GET SLIMED!!!

Game 2 saw the teams go to Office, where gamers game the hardest. The game started with Wes starting on the T side and Miindy starting on the CT side. This game was Wes's best of the tournament with the amount of one taps he was able to pick up. But it wasn't enough as Miindy and her strongest of Monday enjoyers were able to win 16-12. Turkish radar was heavily used in the game as both teams needed to hack to out game the enemy gamers. The game had less bits as playing on Office itself is a bit. But it had many more GET SLIMED!!! moments. With Miindy's victory on Office she saw herself tie the series up 1-1. It was also her first win over Wes, while not how she expected it to go, a win is a win.

Game 3 of the grand finals was the most Grand Tournament game of all time. Just coin flips. The game started off strong for Miindy but quickly turned against her. The last time the two players were tied was 10-10 but that was the closest Miindy got to the title. But when down 15-11, she busted out a uno reverse card to save her chances but it wouldn't be losing 16-12. Ending the tournament and giving the crown to a new champion, WES!

## A New Champion

With the crowning of Wes as the Among Us Invitational 2022 champion, it was the fourth player to hold a title in Grand Tournament history. While Wes was given the Goated status, he hadn't won anything though even if he was unable to win he would still easily hold the position. It wasn't suppose to be his first title but with him choking at the previous tournament, this became his first title. He also prevented Miindy from taking her third title.