Action in the upper bracket of VCT EMEA Kickoff continued on Thursday with the upper semifinals deciding the competition's top two teams. In a comfortable fashion in both matches, Gentle Mates Gentle Mates Europe Rank #8 starxo Patryk Kopczynski bipo Taranvir Singh marteen Martin Pátek GLYPH Conner Garcia Minny Patrik Hušek defeated Natus Vincere Natus Vincere Europe Rank #11 sociablEE Volkan Yonal Filu Dawid Czarnecki Shao Andrey Kiprsky Ruxic Uğur Güç hiro Emirhan Kat , while BBL Esports BBL Esports Europe Rank #2 Crewen Ali Eren Sargin Lar0k Yusuf Kaan Kanber Loita Utku Kart Rosé Eren Erzan lovers rock Umut Pekdoğan shut down Team Vitality Team Vitality Europe Rank #4 Jamppi Elias Olkkonen PROFEK Dawid Święć Derke Nikita Sirmitev Chronicle Timofey Khromov Sayonara Ștefan Mîtcu to set up a date in the upper final.

Nothing Gentle about it: Gentle Mates sweep Natus Vincere

Just months removed from seemingly being relegated back to the Challengers level, Gentle Mates have come back and taken EMEA by storm. The team underwent a large-scale rebuild, retaining just Minny from 2025, but has looked better than ever. In a 2-0 sweep over NAVI, the Mates never looked uncomfortable.

The series started on M8's pick of Abyss, where the Mates' double-Duelist comp was tested against NAVI's util-heavy double-Initiator comp. From the get-go, Gentle Mates had all of the momentum. A 4-0 run to start the map was promptly responded to with a 3-0 NAVI run, and by halftime, the Mates had a 7-5 lead.

All alone on site, marteen makes it look easy.

The former Ascension squad looked to make the map a quick one by winning the pistol of its defense half, but an anti-eco from NAVI threatened to flip the script. After giving up the thrifty and losing its own anti-eco, Gentle Mates responded in a big way, winning five straight to close out the map 13-7.

Duelist players marteen and bipo formed the perfect one-two punch on the map, finishing with 20 and 18 kills, respectively, as part of the 'mosquito comp' duo that is Yoru and Waylay. Despite the best efforts of hiro , who was on Tejo, NAVI could not claw back on Abyss.

Attention turned to NAVI's pick of Bind, a map on which was the opening map of the team's 2-1 win over Team Heretics Team Heretics Europe Rank #3 Wo0t Mert Alkan RieNs Enes Ecirli benjyfishy Benjamin David Fish ComeBack Berkcan Şentürk Boo Ričardas Lukaševičius one week prior. Last week, Gentle Mates also made its 2026 debut on the map in its 2-0 win over GIANTX GIANTX Europe Rank #5 Cloud Kirill Nehozhin grubinho Grzegorz Ryczko westside Miłosz Duda Flickless Karel Maeckelbergh ara Hanceriuc Eduard-George .

The two squads fielded two very different comps for the map. While Gentle Mates added Astra, Viper, and Fade to its Waylay-Yoru pairing, NAVI continued with its solo Duelist approach, opting for Filu on Raze while a Brimstone, Viper, Tejo, Skye comp filled out the rest of the squad.

Starting on defense, Gentle Mates once again got off to a hot start, winning eight of the first nine rounds of the map. NAVI, again relying on some fragging power from hiro, managed a three-round run to end the half and enter halftime down just 8-4, but opened the second half with a pistol round win — its first of the series.

Duo ace from marteen and Minny.

Gentle Mates eventually got up to 11 after snowballing a would-be bonus round, but NAVI kept it close. Three of the next four rounds were colored NAVI yellow on the timeline, but with match point on the table, Gentle Mates eventually closed the series out.

marteen and Minny were the pair to watch on Bind. The Czech duo combined for 50 kills, with marteen tallying a map-high six first bloods. His 46 kills and 10 first bloods were the highest in the server across both maps. He also had the joint-highest rating in the server at 1.36 with his IGL, Minny.

Riding a run of three straight wins and no map losses, the Mates will sit steady for two weeks before clashing in the upper final with...

BBL downs another EMEA power, sweeps Vitality

Shutting out all of the offseason chatter surrounding BBL's roster moves and its affiliate relationship with BBL PCIFIC BBL PCIFIC Inactive , BBL has found itself one win away from reaching its first-ever international event. The win came against Team Vitality, a squad that entered phase two of its superteam construction in the offseason by adding Chronicle .

The series started on BBL's pick of Haven, the same map that it defeated FNATIC FNATIC Europe Rank #1 crashies Austin Roberts Boaster Jake Howlett kaajak Kajetan Haremski Veqaj Sylvain Pattyn Alfajer Emir Ali Beder 13-4 last week. To open, it looked like BBL did not miss a beat from last week, claiming the first four rounds of the map. However, as the Turkish squad's attack half developed, Vitality found success. While there was plenty of firepower on both sides of the stage throughout the map, Duelist player Lar0k and veteran Chronicle proved to be the top dogs in the first half, notching 14 and 16 kills to will their teams into an even 6-6 half.

Lar0k only finds three kills, but does enough to pull off the 1v4 clutch.

After only managing six rounds on the three-site, generally attack-sided map, BBL gave up the second half pistol round, allowing Vitality an avenue to snowball on its own attack half. However, a BBL thrifty spelled the beginning of the end for the super team, as the Turkish squad won six straight rounds to reach match point, which was converted three rounds later for a 13-9 win.

Vitality's map pick of Abyss looked to test the only map that BBL had dropped, which came in the team's debut match of the year against PCIFIC PCIFIC Inactive . BBL remained confident in its comp, which matched a double-Duelist pairing with Cypher, Sova, and a solo Controller. On Abyss, that Controller was Omen. Meanwhile, Vitality leaned into the mosquito comp, with Waylay and Yoru, while putting Chronicle on Veto.

BBL's attack side was slow, but in constant motion. An Operator in lovers rock 's hands let the team shut down long sight lines, while Crewen could get working on lurks on the opposite side of the map to stretch Vitality's defense numbers thin. At halftime, BBL's lead was 8-4.

A last-gasp effort from Rosé nearly pulls the round for BBL.

Moving onto defense, BBL claimed its second pistol round of the half and third of the series to en route to hitting double-digit rounds, but Vitality did not go down without a fight. Led by heroics from the likes of Jamppi and UNFAKE , Vitality looked to get back into the map, but once the economy for an Operator in lovers rock's hands was established, BBL cruised to match point and, soon after, the 13-8 win.

Lar0k and lovers rock, the Duelist duo, had 42 and 41 kills, respectively in the win, while Chronicle's 37 was not enough.

Up next

Gentle Mates and BBL will stay home for the next two weeks while they prep for their upper final match, while NAVI and Vitality will slide down to the middle bracket.

VCT EMEA Kickoff will continue with the following matches: