Intro and Pro coverage by Cheryl Ellis
The NXL Midwest Open returned Joyce Park outside of Cincinnati, Ohio, June 25-28. Although the weather did not cooperate, bringing three days of rain followed by record temperatures, the storms did not slow down the steaming hot competition which was some of the best that professional paintball has seen to date.
Bolstered by the newly implemented paint cap and the point differential rule, the pace and the intensity of the games have ramped up to new levels, and it is reflected in the scores. The Pros played matches that ran as many as 18 points. That’ s more spins than the average player will see across three complete practice sessions, and that was just one match.
Story lines developed at every level of the Pro Division. Chicago Distortion, for example, dropped their Wyldside and put together their best performance of the season by far, even making the finals on Sunday. Jet Isidro of Aftershock ran a successful Dead Man’ s Walk on the Atlanta Jungle Cats early in the event, but Davis Stephens would prove that was not evidence that the‘ Cats are slouches. He came back later in the prelims to win a 2-on-1 against veterans Justin Rabackoff and Alexander Berdnikov of Red Legion later in the afternoon. And in perhaps the best move of the event, Raney Stanczak of Edmonton Impact put his sprezzatura full display when he hustled his way out of a 1-on-4 against Legion, taking a four-pack out of the snake side of the field like Magellan of the paintball field.
Multiple teams came to the event with depleted rosters. Of note, Tampa Bay Damage was thinned by injuries to Chris Schehr and Jonathan Edwards. But no one carried a heavier weight than the TonTons who ran the entire event with only six players on their roster.
And two teams, the TonTons and Seattle Uprising, rode the swell of the underdog story. But it was Uprising that would take it all the way to the finals, and ultimately fall short in an absolute heartbreak loss to the titan Edmonton Impact. But they walked away with much to celebrate. This was not only their first finals appearance and podium. The strong finish put them in the top ten in the rankings overall for the first time in the organization’ s history and established them as an undeniable top-tier Pro team.
Photo by Weronika Wrona Krzemińska- Połeć
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