Welcome to this week's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 GameStop International Tournament update! In case you haven't heard about this $10,000 tournament, you can find all the information on this page. The regular season ladder play ended on December 11th, and the competition is now moving into its second stage -- the playoffs! It's been a few weeks since our last update, so let's bring everybody up to speed before the playoffs start moving along!

Starting with the North America side of the competition, it was Team FeaR that walked into the playoffs with the #1 overall seed, and a first round bye! After finishing the season 52-0, it's no surprise that Team FeaR has once again established themselves as an elite Call of Duty team. However, they weren't the only ones to find success in this tournament: MoB Gaming went 64-2 and earned the #2 seed (along with a first round bye), finishing just 65 XP behind Team FeaR. Art of Execution finished in third place with a 56-8 record, but won 12 straight games to close out the exhibition play. You always have to be scared of a team who's going into the playoffs on a hot streak. The #4 seed belongs to RioT, who went 35-3 in the regular season. They were able to beat out XPL (56-6, #5 seed) by just under 100XP.

Now, let's see how the Europeans are doing! Team Coolermaster, who have been a favorite from the start, lived up to expectations by clinched the #1 seed in the playoffs with a 52-5 record. Their rival squad Team Coolermaster II didn't disappoint either, going 52-9 and earning themselves the #2 seed. Both teams will have first round byes in the playoff tournament. Meanwhile, SK Gaming clinched third place with a 32-3 record, and ended the season on a 15 game winning streak -- 1 win better than Team Coolermaster II's 14 game streak to close the season. There's quite a drop-off between SK Gaming and the #4 ranked Forward Gaming. Although Forward Gaming finished a respectable 30-7, they were over 600XP behind SK Gaming. The most impressive of the bunch may be #5 ranked AlterYourEgo, who earned a Top 5 seed with just 22 wins and 3 losses. That's eight less wins than Forward Gaming, but AlterYourEgo finished just 50XP out of fourth place.

The regular season was a great success, with over 4,000 total teams participate throughout the competition. However, with over 400 teams from each side qualifying for the playoffs, it's impossible to preview and break down every match-up. You can follow the action at home by viewing the North America Playoff Bracket and the European Playoff Bracket. More updates to come! See you all in a couple weeks!



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