The final week of the Americas Stage 2 group stage has come to an end, and with it regional league play in the partnerships era. NRG NRG North America Rank #2 keiko Georgio Sanassy brawk Brock Somerhalder mada Adam Pampuch skuba Logan Jenkins Ethan Ethan Arnold , LEVIATÁN LEVIATÁN North America Rank #3 spike Rodrigo Lombardi blowz Guilherme Oliviera Neon Bruno Rodríguez Sato Eduardo Kenzo Nagahama Sato kiNgg Francisco Aravena , 100 Thieves 100 Thieves North America Rank #1 Cryocells Matthew Panganiban Asuna Peter Mazuryk vora Jordan Pulwer Timotino Timothée Lavigne Dupont bang Sean Bezerra , and LOUD LOUD Brazil Rank #1 lukxo Lucca Travaioli DaviH David Cruz Darker Sebastián Castro Cicuamia erde Roberto Lobos tkzin Enzo Zimiani loan cauanzin Cauan Pereira each secured byes to the playoffs, while the rest of the pack will compete in the play-in stage alongside top Challengers teams starting August 13.

Below are the match results from week four of the group stage:

The week began with Evil Geniuses taking down FURIA in 2-0 fashion. The first map was a close 13-11 affair, with both sides trading round winstreaks before EG finally closed it out, while Breeze was a 13-3 stomp. The match had no impact on the standings; both teams will be in play-ins, with FURIA in particular still appearing to struggle with their identity as a team heading into the next phase of competition.

Coming into the week, all four playoff byes were still up in the air. The first team to clinch a spot was NRG, who secured a comfortable 2-0 over ENVY despite continued improvements from the Ascension squad heading into play-ins. The world champions followed up with a dominant win over EG later in the week to complete a flawless 5-0 stage and lock in the first seed in Group Alpha. Individually, keiko had a strong performance in both matches with 36 kills in the ENVY match and 35 in the EG one.

keiko reclaims the B site with a rapid ace.

The other playoff spot in Group Alpha was determined by a direct head-to-head match between MIBR and LEV, with the spot being awarded to the winner. LEV looked shaky to start the first half of Split as MIBR took an early lead, but the London champions recovered their stride and mounted an overwhelmingly coordinated defense to take the map 13-10. Another stalwart defense half on Sunset led them to a 2-0 victory and the second playoff spot in Alpha.

Over in Group Omega, the playoff race played out far more unpredictably, starting with Cloud9 pulling off a big upset over the group leaders 100T. Compared to previous weeks, Cloud9 looked significantly improved, taking a 12-9 lead on Split off of a well-coordinated snowball on the defense side and scrapping out overtime to a 15-13 victory when 100T forced extra innings. On Breeze, OXY took over, dropping 31 kills and 364 ACS as Cloud9 leveraged their first double pistol win of the entire stage to take a major scalp ahead of play-ins.

Despite the loss, 100T would be locked in for playoffs later that day thanks to LOUD defeating G2 2-0. Starting on Sunset, LOUD led 7-5 at the half despite G2's 5-1 start, having won six rounds in a row off of individual duels and strong contact play. After a chaotic chain of Thrifty rounds, G2 took map point at 12-10, but LOUD demonstrated resilience to take it to overtime and win 15-13. Lotus was a 13-1 thrashing; G2 were powerless to stop LOUD's executes as tkzin farmed six first bloods and 18 kills in 14 rounds.

lukxo 's Chamber continued to be a major win condition for LOUD as he dropped 45 kills versus G2.

The loss to LOUD knocked G2 out of playoff contention, leaving the final spot for either LOUD or Sentinels. That race was quickly decided as KRÜ managed another big upset over Sentinels to start the next day. While Sentinels looked firmly better in both halves on the first map of Summit, KRÜ flipped the script on Sunset and Breeze, mounting 9-3 attack sides on both maps with new KAY/O and Chamber-centric compositions to win the series 2-1 and allow LOUD to seize the last playoff spot.

A 1v3 from Less keeps Breeze in KRÜ's control.

With the playoff teams locked in, the final match of the week was a match for first seed between 100T and LOUD. 100T looked renewed following the earlier loss, opening with a 9-3 defense on Summit and winning the second pistol to eventually seal it 13-8. Haven was a similar story as 100T had another 9-3 defense; a Thrifty round at the start of the second half gave LOUD a way back in, but 100T ultimately managed to win 13-10. Asuna ran rampant with 27 kills on Summit, while bang followed up on Haven with 25 kills.

Timotino pulls off the Frenzy ace of a lifetime.

Up next

The play-ins begin tomorrow, August 13, with Challengers squads M80, BESTIA, 2Game Esports, and Fluxo W7M joining the fray. The first matches of the bracket, which were drawn following the LOUD versus 100T match, are as follows: