The second week of VCT 2022 Stage 2 North America Challengers is over, and the leading teams are XSET, Luminosity and OpTic Gaming. These three have won both their games, while last season’s surprising side The Guard still sits at the bottom of the table without any win, as they will look to get their first win this week.
TSM were among the teams that got their first win this week, pulling the upset against 100 Thieves. Sentinels poor form continues, and while these teams couldn’t put on a good show, other teams consider this their opportunity to make it to the Masters Copenhagen and Champions at the end of the year. This is their only chance before the Last Chance Qualifiers and making it through LCQ is hell for them. Let’s have a look at the games from last week.
Second week recap
The second week of NA Challengers Stage 2 started with FaZe Clan vs Luminosity Gaming. bdog’s Chamber took the lead for his team, and Luminosity won two very close games which could arguably go to FaZe Clan’s side if they played a little bit better, they had the advantage both times: 13-11 on Fracture and 14-12 on Icebox.
Ghost Gaming vs The Guard followed that. On Haven, Ghost Gaming utterly destroyed The Guard, losing only a single round on defend side and winning two in a row on attack side to finish the job. After a 9 win streak at the start of Ascent, Ghost Gaming tied the series with a 13-8 victory. The fate of the series would be decided on Fracture, and Canadian koalanoob played a 307 average combat score 23-14 Chamber to get the victory for Ghost Gaming.
The following two games ended very quickly: TSM defeated 100 Thieves 13-10 on Split and 13-6 on Haven. It was a pretty big deal for TSM side, getting the victory against 100 Thieves shows that they are competitive enough to fight for a place in the playoffs in their first split.
Two close but confidently played games brought victory to the EG side against Sentinels with a 13-11 Ascent secured by C0M’s Sova and Boostio’s Chamber followed by a 13-10 victory on Icebox with jawgemo’s huge Jett play, 27-15. TenZ failed to make a presence, finishing 30-41 overall while enemy Jett/Raze jawgemo affected the series heavily.
OpTic Gaming vs Cloud9 started first on the last day of the week. C9 started with a strong 13-4 victory on Icebox, yay’s Chamber failed to stand in the way of Xeppaa’s 310 ACS 22-9 performance. Masters champions tied the series on Ascent with 13-5, taking it to Haven. This time, yay’s Chamber joined forces with Marved’s Astra to take down Cloud9 13-10. It looked doomed for a part of the second half bot a 7 round long win streak took care of the job.
In the last game, taking their second win of the season, XSET managed to defeat NRG Esports 2-0. Both on Bind and Split, NRG did show competitiveness, but 13-8 and 13-9 scores secured the win for XSET, Cryocells stole the spotlights with his 35-29 Chamber overall.
Schedule for the third week
Check out the schedule below:
May 27, Friday
The Guard (2.25) vs TSM (1.58) - 22:00 CEST
May 28, Saturday
Luminosity Gaming (1.60) vs Evil Geniuses (2.20) - 01:00 CEST
Sentinels vs OpTic Gaming - 22:00 CEST
May 29, Sunday
100 Thieves vs XSET - 01:00 CEST
FaZe Clan vs Cloud9 - 22:00 CEST
May 30, Monday
Ghost Gaming vs NRG Esports - 01:00 CEST
If you are interested, check out Luckbox to claim your 100% bonus, watch the games live and place your bets on your favourite teams.
