The race to qualify for the Masters Copenhagen tickets is on full throttle, and the group stage of Stage 2 NA Challengers is about to end. During the last two weeks, teams will either try to secure their favourable positions or climb out from the bottom of their groups. Let’s see what happened in the third week, and what we are about to witness this week.
Once the biggest team of North America, Sentinels is now fighting to get back from a 0-3 start. Besides that, both Group A and Group B are witnessing great competition between all the teams participating. Only OpTic Gaming has a clear advantage with their 3-0 start that pretty much seals the deal for them.
VCT NA Week 3 recap
After a disappointing start to Stage 2, The Guard faced TSM to finally find a win. It wasn’t an easy victory on Haven, but thanks to Sayaplayer’s dominating Jett, TGRD won TSM’s map. They played even more comfortably on Icebox, finishing it 13-7 and going back home with a victory.
One of the two 2-0 teams from Group B, Luminosity Gaming played against Evil Geniuses to keep chasing OpTic. However, EG played one of their best games since Stage 2’s start, defeating Luminosity on Icebox 13-7 with a 10-2 lead in the first half. It was even easier on Bind where they finished the job with a 13-2 victory.
The following day, OpTic Gaming faced Sentinels. This was a chance for Sentinels to put an end to their poor form and finally come back alive, but OpTic didn’t let them. After a 10-2 first half, they won Fracture 13-5, and moved on to win Bind too with another 10-2 start, this time giving Sentinels more in the second half: 13-8.
100 Thieves' opponent was XSET to bring even more chaos to Group A. The undefeated XSET was shocked on Breeze after Will played a 24-9, 358 average combat score Jett to get the 13-4 victory to 100T. Following that, bang’s Brimstone was the highlight of the 13-9 victory from 100 Thieves, coming back from 7-5.
FaZe Clan fought Cloud9 for their first win of Stage 2 on the last day of the week. FaZe started out very strong, taking down Cloud9 13-5 with a great Neon performance from BABYBAY. C9 showed more resistance on Haven but it wasn’t enough as FaZe advanced with a 2-0 victory.
Finally, Ghost Gaming played NRG Esports. Securing the 13-6 victory on Haven and following up with a strong 13-5 on Breeze, Ghost Gaming became one of the teams with an advantage in Group A. Having two wins instead of one is very important at this point because three teams are 2-1 and three are 1-2 in the group.
Week 4 schedule
Check out the schedule of the next week below:
June 3, Friday
The Guard (1.75) vs XSET (1.98) - 22:00 CEST
June 4, Saturday
Evil Geniuses (5.80) vs OpTic Gaming (1.10) - 01:00 CEST
Sentinels (5.30) vs FaZe Clan (1.12) - 22:00 CEST
June 5, Sunday
TSM vs Ghost Gaming - 01:00 CEST
NRG Esports vs 100 Thieves - 22:00 CEST
June 6, Monday
Cloud9 vs Luminosity Gaming - 01:00 CEST
While the group is in a chaos, The Guard has to defeat XSET to keep their hopes alive. Evil Geniuses will face OpTic to either stop the 3-0 lead of the group or possibly give up their second place to Luminosity. Sentinels are 0-3 now, and the game against FaZe Clan is about honour at this point, their chances are very low while FaZe should be pretty motivated.
TSM, in their first season, is in a good position, but Ghost Gaming might be a bit too hard to show their strength against. 100 Thieves wants to keep their good form going (aside from that fluke against TSM) and should be extra motivated against NRG. The last game is Cloud9 vs Luminosity, a loss here might decide C9's fate while Luminosity should have more chances to advance to playoffs.
If you are interested, check out Luckbox to claim your 100% bonus, watch the games live and place your bets on your favourite teams.
