G2 end EMEA Challengers Playoffs with 4th seed

G2 Esports G2 Esports Inactive 's run in the Stage 3: EMEA Challengers Playoffs came to an end today, while Acend Acend Europe Rank #9 ALIVE Gilad Hakim musashi Alessio Xhaferi Br0die Jack Emmott baddyG Kamil Graniczka chiwa Egor Stepanyuk Vuubit Roope Eilola were knocked down to the lower bracket final by Papara SuperMassive Papara SuperMassive Europe Rank #34 sterben Emre Demirci skylen Asil Yalçın hiro Emirhan Kat CyderX Caner Demir MOJJ Buğra Kiraz Celasun Emir Celasun SouhcNi Ibrahim Sağır Izzy Baran Yılmaz .

Two seeding matches still remain for the EMEA Challengers Playoffs.

The first match of the day was between Gambit Esports Gambit Esports Inactive Redgar Igor Vlasov Chronicle Timofey Khromov d3ffo Nikita Sudakov sheydos Bogdan Naumov nAts Ayaz Akhmetshin and G2, who both pulled off marathon wins yesterday that granted them the final EMEA spots for Stage 3: Masters Berlin. "[Today's energy] was just like the match against Liquid," Ayaz "nAts" Akhmetshin said in a post-match interview. "We wanted to win this game because we want to have a good seed. We want to show we are good in Europe and can fight with any team here."

True to nAts's word, Gambit looked absolutely fearless in their Ascent pick, securing a nearly-uncontested 13-3 win. The Ascent pick was dominated by several Odin plays from Timofey "Chronicle" Khromov, which garnered his teams several rounds and himself several multikills. "Our coach told Chronicle a month ago to try to use the Odin," nAts continuted. "He started and he's got such an advantage with the gun... no one can kill him. He's spamming, shooting everything and killing everybody."

G2 woke up on the second map of Icebox, taking it 13-8 thanks to a good round streak in the second half. Despite Gambit's strong showing in the opening map, the players echoed in the post-match interviews that their performance on Icebox was less than stellar. "We didn't think about [winning the match there]. We just forgot we won Ascent and started preparing for Icebox but something went wrong. Our individual game was bad," nAts recalled. Igor "Redgar" Vlasov echoed the thoughts in the post-match streamed interview. "I guess we just forgot how to play this map [laughs]. We committed really bad mistakes and G2 just punished us for that."

And you could see it. Only one Gambit player had more than 13 kills. G2, on the other hand, had 3 players over that same amount of kills, with Žygimantas "nukkye" Chmieliauskas in particular scoring 325 ACS.

With the series down to the wire, it was a tough fight on Bind. After a good start from Gambit, G2 rushed to match point, dropping only one round in the process. Gambit held onto the map and pushed it to overtime, which they handily secured 14-12, eliminating G2 from the EMEA Playoffs.

G2's loss means they secure the fourth EMEA seed heading into Berlin.

Tomorrow, they'll face Acend in the lower bracket final. After their match today, nAts is ready to take on the remaining teams in the upper bracket. "I guess we'd like to play against Blaze tomorrow. I hope we'll win against them and rematch in the grand final against Acend. It's going to be interesting, for sure."

But there's still lots of room for improvement in this coming month. "I think we can be better," Redgar said. "I and Andrey "ENGH" Sholokhov saw a lot of mistakes in our playstyle." He went on to say they're on the shortlist for things to be fixed before Berlin.

Regarding the recently revealed format for Berlin, nAts thinks it's interesting, to say the least. "It's a bit weird, in Iceland people had a second chance but now only one team [makes it out of groups]. I guess it would be better if you qualified two teams and started from the quarter-finals without a lower bracket. So we'll see... It's okay, I guess. The better teams will win."

The second match of the day was a hot one. Acend and SuperMassive Blaze — so far both undefeated and holding great win-streaks. From the start, these two were pegged for Berlin by thousands of people. And now, they were finally facing each other.

Although SuperMassive Blaze won six rounds on Bind, they were incapable of countering Acend and dropped the map 13-6. They replied back decisively on their Split pick 13-5, tying the series up with a carry from Eren "Brave" Kasırga, who debuted his Astra on this map. The Turkish Controller said that he was surprised Acend left the map open in the veto. "We were expecting them to ban Split, so yeah, we were surprised."

Being the decider, Haven was a much taller endeavor for both teams but it was SuperMassive Blaze's to take 13-10, ending the 15-match-long win streak Acend had maintained since July.

In the post-match interview, Brave came on to say that "[they] were seeing Acend as the best team in Europe. So, I think, yes, we passed [the test]. But there's one left: Sentinels Sentinels North America Rank #2 TenZ Tyson Ngo Zellsis Jordan Montemurro zekken Zachary Patrone johnqt Mohamed Amine Ouarid Sacy Gustavo Rossi !"

Once again, Acend are not out of the tournament. They'll play the lower bracket final against Gambit. The losing team of that match will fly to Germany with the third EMEA seed, while the victor will play the grand final against SuperMassive Blaze to determine the first and second EMEA seeds.

The lower bracket final is scheduled for tomorrow, August 21, at 3 PM CEST.