Still, having a strong player in the third tier is a big advantage.
The Penguins, with players from the first two tiers, collectively won 6 matches, but Maradjan carried them. Cerberus, Preds and I have five wins between us, and Dima carried us. Bubuchu just needed one more win against Diablero (but then we wouldn't have made it).
And Hellight and Maretti, who each won eight matches, didn't carry their teams. Interestingly, none of the captains from the teams that made it scored that many points :)