The final day of BR Challengers Stage 1 had high stakes for everyone involved. Four teams played this week in Group B and every single one of them could qualify for playoffs.
Check out the other weekly recaps and more at my VCT BR Post Library and here is Week 5 Group A as well.
Vivo Keyd (2-0) Furia
Due to tiebreaker scenarios, Furia is already qualified for playoffs. Despite that, this match mattered a lot to Furia as a win would guarantee them a bye in the playoffs and the opposite side of the bracket from LOUD. Vivo Keyd came into the group stage as favorites, but have struggled in the group of death with map losses to Sharks and Ingaming as well as a series loss to NIP.
Icebox: VK(15-13)FUR
Vivo Keyd picked Icebox and both teams mixed up their comps with the new meta. Mazin brought out the Omen instead of the Viper and both teams picked up the Chamber on players who have not played him on this map before. Quick opened up the first two rounds on Furia’s attack with Headhunter one taps onto his counterpart Chamber in murizzz, however, Vivo Keyd still won the first four rounds. Icebox has been the most attacker sided map in Brazil so far with a 60% attacking round winrate, and Furia clawed their way back into the half allowing Vivo Keyd only two more rounds at the end of the half for a 6-6 scoreline. Furia won their own defensive pistol and proceeded to be very effective on the retake as they took a 12-9 lead, but Vivo Keyd clawed back the final three rounds to force overtime. heat picked up the pace as Vivo Keyd snatched a nail-biting win in the second OT. v1xen was the star of the map with the top marks in kills(30), multikills(8), clutches(1), and ADR(207).
Ascent: FUR(13-11)VK
Furia’s map pick was Ascent, but they got off to a bad start when mwzera got a 4k with a Sheriff from Logs which also included a collateral and a wallbang. VK continued to roll until a Khalil 1v2 clutch stemmed the bleeding in the 5th round. Unlike Icebox, Furia were unable to stabilize their attack, and VK closed the half up 9-3. Furia started out their defensive half well, but mwzera found another 4k on the 4th round eco to give VK double digits. VK proved to be even less effective on their attack than Furia and failed to win any gun rounds until Furia had taken the lead 11-10. Furia capped off their dominant defense with a 13-11 map win to even the series. Ascent was a battle between mwzera and Quick as both put up at least 27 kills and 200 ADR. Quick was 10-3 in duels against heat as the VK superstar continued to play a solid but unspectacular series.
Breeze: VK(13-9)FUR
We saw the murizzz Neon on Breeze once more. Furia snuck away with the defensive pistol with a ninja defuse off the back of three quick Sheriff headshots by Quick. VK were again unable to stop the defuse in the second round as Furia got out to an early lead 3-1. Once VK got their hands on proper rifles, they won seven straight rounds for a first half scoreline of 8-4 in which they were only denied the spike plant in the final round. VK won the second pistol, but Furia turned the tides with a 1v3 marshall clutch by Khalil. Furia evened the score at 9 apiece, but VK got back in the half to close the map 13-9 with the final round being a v1xen ninja defuse in a 1v2. Both teams consistently got the spike plant at pyramids, but the passive post-plant positions (pardon the alliteration) cost them both several defuses on the A site. Despite murizzz going 8-20 on the Neon, his utility provided value at critical situations, and the rest of VK played very well including heat and Jhow going from 196 and 99 ACS respectively on Ascent to 282 and 230 on Breeze.
Both VK and Furia guaranteed themselves a playoff berth with this result. Furia was denied a chance at the 1st seed and a 1st round bye in the playoffs.
NIP (2-0) Ingaming
With VK beating FUR, the potential playoff scenarios for NIP and ING were simplified. Win and you are in, lose and you are out. ING had close losses to FUR and VK as well as a win over Sharks, but came into this match as clear underdogs. After suffering a close loss to FUR to start the group stage, NIP have been on a tear looking like the best team in the group. If they won this game they got the 1st seed and a critical bye in the playoffs.
Breeze: NIP(13-7)ING
The map veto played out in a strange fashion as each team picked their opponent’s best map. NIP picked Breeze which they have only played once this group stage in a loss to Furia. Ingaming’s attack found early success as they ran out to a 5-1 lead. Once NIP achieved a stable economy, they won duels all over the map to storm back with a 7-5 lead at the half. NIP won the second pistol, and ING were unable to stop the onslaught as NIP rolled to a 13-7 finish.
Icebox: NIP(13-6)ING
Ingaming picked into Icebox which was NIP’s map pick in every single series they played in this group stage. NIP quickly showcased their dominant attack where they have only lost 3, 4, and 1 rounds against FUR, SHK, and VK respectively. They cruised to a 9-3 lead although they did require multiple clutches to preserve the momentum. Ingaming managed to win 3 more rounds on their attack, but were too far behind as NIP closed the map 13-6. Four clutches including 1v3s from xand and cauanzin kept any Ingaming comeback at bay. With all of NIP’s players in good form, they had too much firepower for Ingaming to deal with.
Ingaming are eliminated from the playoffs and will have to face regulation matches to secure their spot in the second stage of VCT BR. NIP secured a 1st round bye and will face the winner of TBK vs FUR in the playoffs.
Coming Up
The playoffs are scheduled to start on March 22.
VK vs GLB and the winner faces LOUD.
TBK vs FUR and the winner faces NIP.
March 16-19 is the second open and closed qualifiers for Stage 2.
Botafogo, Renegados, MIBR, and Los Grandes have already qualified for the “final qualifier”, and four more spots are up for grabs.
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