After nearly two-months of season play, the D2L Western Challenge is now moving to its playoffs stage scheduled 19-24 June. Two of the eight invited teams are already out of the $50,000 competiton.

The RoX.KiS-Liquid match-up, originally scheduled more than six weeks ago, was postponed and moved to yesterday, 28 May. That match incidentally turned out to be a crucial game, as whoever wins would claim the sixth and final playoff slot for the D2L Western Challenge.

Their match-up needed the full three games to determine the winner. It was the Russian team who ended-up on top as they won the first and last game of the series. Despite going to a 2-1 score, all three matches were terribly lopsided and no game last

RoX will be joining the five other teams who have earlier secured a playoff slot. The playoffs will follow a double-elimination format, with the top two teams getting seeded directly into the upper bracket semifinals. The first of those two seeded teams is American-team EG, who finished with a 6-1 record.

The team who would be ranked second was harder to determine, as teams Empire, Cloud9 and Natus Vincere finished with an identical 5-2 record. It was Empire who had the nod because of their better map and head-to-head performance. They finished 11-6 together with Cloud9, a bit higher than the 11-7 of Na`Vi. Empire defeated Cloud9 in the group stage though, so they ended up taking second while C9 and Na`Vi were positioned third and fourth respectively.

The Champion of this tournament will get $25,000, half of the total prize pool. The second, third and fourth placer will receive $15,000, $7,500 and $2,500 respectively.

All of the six playoff teams will also receive a portion of the DotaTV ticket profits. The first and second place team will get 25% each, the third and fourth placer will receive 15% apiece and the last two will get 10% each. $14,465 ws contributed to the pool at the time of publication.