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Mir Gaming & Cheeseburger promoted to OWCS Korea Stage 3, Old Ocean retain place

by Chris 'gigalore' Munro

The Korean OWCS Opens and Promotion/Relegation tournaments, to determine which three teams would claim the last spots in 2025’s final stage, took place on the 15th through 18th August.

With Poker Face opting out of participating, and Vesta Esports Crew (VEC) constructing a brand new roster for the tournament, Old Ocean was the sole team from Stage 2’s bottom three to enter the tournament at the Double Elimination Promotion/Relegation stage on Day 3, avoiding Day 1’s Group Stage and Day 2’s Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ) games. This left 7 spots available for open qualifier teams to play for.

Day 1

Day 1 began with open teams divided into four groups, each playing a full round robin. Group winners advanced directly to the promotion/relegation bracket on day 3, while 2nd placed teams would move on to day 2’s Last Chance Qualifier. The four eventual group winners were VEC, returning Contenders and Overwatch League invitational team Dreamers, Korea Stage 1 competitor New Era during the tournament, and new roster Cheeseburger, all of whom did not drop a map. The 2nd placed teams advancing to day 2 play were Yonsei University, OTIF, MNE and former Contenders side Xero.

Day 2

Day 2’s LCQ would see one team eliminated, with the remaining three joining Old Ocean and the Day 1 qualifiers in the final bracket. Xero and Yonsei University took comfortable 3-0 wins over OTIF and MNE respectively in the qualifier games, before OTIF triumphed 3-0 over MNE in the elimination game.

Day 3

Round 1 of the final Double Elimination bracket began with Yonsei University opting to forfeit its matches, resulting in Cheeseburger advancing directly to the Winners semis and one win away from a place in the main event. Old Ocean overpowered OTIF 3-0 in their opening game, setting up an intriguing Semi-Final with the default winners.

On the other side of the bracket, a pair of tighter contests took place, with New Era overcoming Xero 3-1 and VEC squeezing past Dreamers in a 3-2 result.

In the Winner’s Semi-Finals, Old Ocean defeated Cheeseburger 3-1, while New Era and VEC played out a 5 map series that fell Mir’s way. Having secured qualification, Old Ocean and New Era were now set to play each other in a final seeding match on Day 4.

In the Lower Bracket, Xero pulled off an upset against Dreamers, taking the series 3-1: a reversal of the earlier group stage result in opens. This set up a Day 4 clash against Cheeseburger, while OTIF were the other beneficiary of Yonsei’s forfeits, immediately progressing to the other Loser’s Semi-Final against VEC.

Day 4

After an exciting series of games on Day 3, creating an enticing Day 4, the tournament ultimately ended in a whimper, with all games played ending in 3-0 sweeps.

Old Ocean took the Winner’s Final over New Era, securing 7th seed for themselves and putting New Era into 8th seed.

In lower finals, Cheeseburger and VEC defeated Xero and OTIF respectively, before Cheeseburger blew VEC out of the water in the last match of the tournament, securing their place in Stage 3, and denying VEC a place in the main event for the first time in OWCS history.

Following the end of the tournament, Korean Org Mir Gaming acquired the New Era roster, who will now play under that banner in OWCS Korea Stage 3.

For full previews of the qualified teams, check out our OWCS Stage 3 Korea Preview.

1st Qualifier: Old Ocean

  • Han “A1IEN” Yu-bin (DPS) [New]
  • Kim “Becky” Il-ha (DPS)
  • Go “D4RT” Min-hyuk (DPS) [New]
  • Cho “Heiser” Yu-hyun (Tank) [New]
  • Jeon “Gur3um” Yong-min (Tank)
  • Ryu “Ryujehong” Je-hong (Support)
  • Jeong “KIVIS” Yeon-woo (Support)

  • Kwon "Yang1" Yang-won (Head Coach)
  • Kim “Hunter” Dae-Nang (Coach)
  • Kim "DOX" Min-seok (Coach)

2nd Qualifier: Mir Gaming (formerly New Era)

  • Choi “K4ne” Joo-hyeong(DPS)
  • Kwak “Flos” Min-seo (DPS)
  • Jang “AZENT” Hyeon-ik (DPS)
  • Kim “RULER” Yi-gun (Tank)
  • Lee “MCD” Jeong-ho (Support)
  • Jang “Univ2r” Geon-ik (Support)

  • Lee "le0na" Ji-seop (Coach)

3rd Qualifier: Cheeseburger

  • Hyeon “D0D0” Jae-woong (DPS)
  • Song “ZeSin” Yun-jin (DPS)
  • Kim “Argon” Han-saem (DPS)
  • Kim “FARMER” Yea-han (Tank)
  • Lee “SeungAn” Seung-an (Tank)
  • Kim “Faith” Hong-gyu (Support)
  • Lee “WoochaN” Woo-chan (Support)