For the last few weeks, and leading up to the launch of Gears of War: Judgment next week (next week!), the South African Gears of War old guard have been settling the score one last time, taking to old arenas and putting aside ancient rivalries to battle for supremacy in Gears of War 3 one last time.

Organised and hosted by Jody Williams (jGLZA) and the Crimson Moon Rising clan, the SA Gears of War 3 Grand Finale tournament has seen no less than eleven legendary and new clans whittled down to four hopefuls: FLS Legion, FLS Betrayal, Johnny Can’t Swim and The Button Mashers.

Who will take the crown?

In CMR’s latest weekly update, Jody captured the intensity of the matches by recounting the action some of the games, writing:

“The first match of the night was FLS Betrayal against CMR Lambent. The execution game on Hotel was very tight with a few sudden deaths deciding some of the rounds, Betrayal’s teamwork however saw them edge the win. The KOTH on the otherhand was a different story with Betrayal utterly dominating on Trenches and claiming the first win of the group stages.

“Next up was the match of the night as RZ Aunty Jowie beat GZ’s MountainCloudSquad in a superb comeback win after losing the first execution game 4-1, pushing a 3rd game and then winning it 3-4. Aunty Jowie’s luck ran out at the end of the night though as they were steamrolled by a dominant FLS Legion in the final match of the night.”

The teams captured video of the matches, too, allowing us to see the action for ourselves! Here’s FLS Legion against RZ Aunty Jowie in Execution on Blood Drive:

The second day of the second week of the tournament saw match just as intense as any before, as Jody writes:

“The remaining teams in Group B found themselves in the same position thanks to Stranded win over Lambent early in the evening meaning that a win for Lambent over the Johnny Can’t Swim would see Group B also decided on round difference. But as if they were a totally different team from Tuesday the Lambent team seem lost in their execution games which left too much work for them to do in their KOTH games which was much improved on Tuesdays performance.

“The final KOTH game against Johnny Can’t Swim was extremely close with JCS winning the final round by 20 pts seeing them progress to the next round.”

Here’s FLS Betrayal against Johnny Can’t Swim in Execution on Rustlung:

After weeks of hard-fought matches, tonight (March 12th) will see the knock-out phase of the tournament taking place as FLS Legion take on Johnny Can’t Swim, while The Button Mashers take on FLS Betrayal. Here are the standings for both Group A and Group B of the tournament:

Good luck to the teams tonight!

Be sure to follow Crimson Moon Rising on Twitter for updates on how the matches are progressing tonight and definitely visit the crew’s YouTube page to see some of the other matches that have been played, recorded for posterity.

Here’s one more hectic match in an El33tonline favourite mode, King of the Hill, to showcase some of the intense skills on display:

GF: FLS Legion vs RZ Aunty Jowie – KOTH Thrashball

Who do you think will proceed to the finals? FLS Legion, FLS Betrayal, Johnny Can’t Swim or The Button Mashers?

Tags: cmr, community, el33tonline, gearsofwar3, gearsofwarjudgment, gearsofwarwednesday, jglza, southafrica, tournament, xboxlive