Axiom's Alicia is the first Korean to drop out of Premier league as he was dealt two 1-2 losses by compatriot Heart and Mexican Terran Major in Group C. A day later, Group D became the reason of Moonglade's ousting to Hwangsin and Puck.
Both groups played towards the end of the week turned out to be three-man pools, with Sound and Theognis dropping from Groups C and D, respectively, due to retirement. Thus, only three matches had to be played in each group to determine who would be promoted to Premier league and who will stay down in challenger.
Despite getting an auto win against Sound, America season 1 quarter finalist and Assembly Summer bronze finalist Alicia failed to channel this advantage into a positive result. The Axiom Protoss was stopped by Heart in the winners match and once again by another Terran - Major - in the group decider, making for one of the upsets in the tournaments thus far. While this will be Major's third Premier league appearance in a row (the previous two ending at the Ro32), it will be only the second one for Heart as he spend the entire season 2 down in challenger league.
A day later in Group D, the challenger league continued to filter out anyone different from American and Korean and spelled the end of Moonglade's hopes for a third premier league appearance. The Australian will spend the next season in the lower layers of the league after finishing top eight in Season 1 and top 32 in Season 2.
With the forfeiture of Theognis, that left Hwangsin and Puck on first and second place, respectively. Both are the fourth representatives of their region to climb up to premier league, maintaining some form of balance between Korea and America.
Headline photo: R1CH
