EMEA Challengers Stage 2 is coming to an end before the Masters Copenhagen begins. The final four teams will share the three remaining spots at Masters. This weekend we will witness four matches to decide which teams will get a bigger share of the €200,000 prize pool while one team will be left without a ticket to Copenhagen.
Guild Esports and Fnatic are alive in the upper bracket, and have already secured their tickets to the Masters. However, M3 Champioıns and FunPlus Phoenix will face each other in the semi-finals of the lower bracket to decide who will represent EMEA. Let's take a look at what happened in the playoffs and move on to the schedule.
Last week’s recap
Acend versus M3 Champions opened the EMEA Challengers playoffs. VALORANT's first world champion struggled against M3 Champions on Bind with Chronicle's Raze opening the game with 13-7 for his team. Breeze was closer and went better for Acend, but winning two rounds in a row in overtime secured the win for M3C. MONSTEERR was 27-21 on Viper but Chronicle again carried the Russian team to victory.
FunPlus Phoenix took on Team Liquid and started with a 10-2 advantage on Split. Although TL scored six in a row, FPX managed to score 3 more, with SUYGETSU's Cypher tipping the scales. TL responded with the same score, 13-8 on Icebox, taking the game into the decider: Haven. There was another overtime, but FPX quickly ended it 14-12, with Zyppan's performance being incredibly valuable in their victory.
The upper bracket semi-finals began with Guild Esports against M3 Champions. After a strong win against Acend, M3C was hopeful, but the first place team in Group B, Guild Esports, gave them no chance. A 13-6 win over Breeze and a 13-11 on Fracture were enough for Guild to advance to the final and to Masters Copenhagen.
Fnatic faced FunPlus Phoenix in the other semi-final. Derke and Alfajer played another amazing series that ended 2-1 in favour of Fnatic. After a 13-6 win on Icebox, FPX won Ascent 14-12 in overtime. However, they failed to slow down the pace of Fnatic on Fracture, thanks to the performance of Enzo with Viper.
After that, the lower bracket games started. M3 Champions played Team Liquid, the team that got defeated by FPX 2-1. The series started with a close game on Icebox, which TL won 13-10. However, M3C managed the reverse sweep with 13-7 on Fracture and 13-6 on Bind. Chronicle, Redgar and Nats played amazingly well to stop ScreaM and his friends from getting to Copenhagen.
The last game of the week was FunPlus Phoenix against Acend. FPX played another three-game best-of-three series against Acend. ACE started with a dominating performance on Haven, 13-3, but FPX answered with a 13-11 win on Icebox. At one point Acend was ahead 11-8, and then FPX won five games in a row to finish the job. It was even easier for FPX on Breeze, where they started with nine straight wins and went on to win 13-3 to end Acend's Copenhagen hopes.
Playoffs schedule
Check out the final week schedule at EMEA Challengers:
June 24, Friday
Guild Esports (2.35) vs Fnatic (1.52) - 16:00 CEST, Upper Bracket Final
M3 Champions (2.35) vs FunPlus Phoenix (1.52) - 19:00 CEST, Lower Bracket Semi-final
June 25, Saturday
TBD - 16:00 CEST, Lower Bracket Final
June 26, Sunday
TBD - 16:00 CEST, Grand Final
Guild and Fnatic are two strong teams, and it's pretty hard to predict anything about them. One thing is for sure: an exciting series lies ahead. However, M3C and FPX have not yet secured their ticket to Masters Copenhagen, and they might be willing to sacrifice more to survive. Chaos and blood is expected from this matchup.
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