The second week of EMEA Challengers is over, and the favourites of each group are establishing themselves slowly. Leaving behind G2 Esports and FPX, Fnatic and Acend look pretty tough, while on Group B, Team Liquid and Guild Esports outperformed M3 Champions and BBL Esports.
To claim the first place, Team Liquid found a very important win against BBL Esports this week. After losing their first game against Fnatic, FunPlus Phoenix risked missing the playoffs, but a victory against G2 Esports got them back inside the race. Natus Vincere once again took it to three games against a strong opponent, M3 Champions, but failed to get the job done. Let’s have a look at the games and the schedule for the next week.
Week two recap
Second week of EMEA Challengers started with BBL Esports vs Team Liquid and it was one of the best series of the week, although it took two games. The overtime ended 16-14 in favor of Team Liquid on Fracture. Turko and QutionerX tried so hard but soulcas’ Astra was unstoppable. It was followed by a 13-9 Split win for Team Liquid, this time, ScreaM took the lead with his 25-11 performance. Both games were very close.
OG LDN UTD played against Fnatic the same day, but it was a convincing performance from Fnatic side, especially Derk’s 45-12 Chamber overall and Alfajer’s 30-14 Raze/Killjoy. Fnatic easily won Haven 13-4, but Icebox was an even worse nightmare for OGLU. Derke led his team to a 13-0 victory.
FunPlus Phoenix destroyed G2 Esports the following day, although the scores look close, FPX looked very confident and took a 13-9 win on Fracture and 13-10 on Ascent. You should give some credits to hoody and nukkye, they did try their best but couldn’t stop Shao - ardiis duo play 38-30 and 36-30.
The last game of the day was BIG vs Guild Esports. The series started with a very close fight on Icebox, BIG blew a 7-5 lead while koldamenta won the map for his team with his 28-10 Viper. BIG followed up with a 13-11 victory on Fracture, musashi played an amazing Chamber game, 332 average combat score and 30-12. The series fate was decided on Haven, the first half was 6-6 but Guild found a seven win streak at the start of the second half which ended it 13-6, thanks to Sayf’s great Killjoy performance.
On the last day of the week, we witnessed kind of a local rivalry: Natus Vincere faced M3 Champions. M3C started with a convincing defeat on Ascent 13-5 and Chronicle’s 325 average combat score Killjoy was a treat. NAVI gave just as strong of an answer on Bind, defeating M3C 13-4, led by 7ssk7’s 18-7 Chamber and zeddy’s 18-10 Omen. It kept getting better: this time, on Icebox, M3 Champions took down NAVI 13-3, with their superstar nAts taking the matter into his hands, with his average combat score with Viper being an amazing 378.
The end of the week came with FOKUS vs Acend as the former made the latter struggle more than expected. They took a 13-7 win on Bind, surprising Acend with a strong performance in the second half. VALORANT’s first world champion Acend came back on Ascent with a 13-8 victory and took it to third game, with cNed’s Jett going online. This time, starxo’s Chamber started to show up, 302 average combat score and 27-11 was enough for his team to get the 13-9 victory.
Schedule for the third week
Check out the third week's schedule at EMEA Challengers Stage 2 below:
May 27, Friday
Team Liquid (1.55) vs Guild Esports (2.30) - 16:00 CEST
OG LDN UTD vs G2 Esports - 19:00 CEST
May 28, Saturday
BIG (1.75) vs Natus Vincere (1.98) - 16:00 CEST
Acend (1.98) vs Fnatic (1.75) - 19:00 CEST
May 29, Sunday
BBL Esports (3.30) vs M3 Champions (1.28) - 16:00 CEST
FOKUS (2.60) vs FunPlus Phoenix (1.45) - 19:00 CEST
The first match of the week will see a clash for the power, both TL and Guild are looking to establish themselves as the first place of their group. BIG vs NAVI loser will probably be out of playoffs contention, and Acend vs Fnatic will determine the first place of the Group A.
BBL Esports didn't start poorly, but they might have to take down such a damaged M3 Champions or they risk missing Masters Copenhagen as well. FOKUS vs FPX will end the week, FPX has to win the game in order to stay inside the race and follow up after their win against G2 Esports.
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