After an extra match week with rescheduled games, only six teams remained to fight for three EMEA slots at Masters Reykjavik, four of which took the stage today. Newly-formed Guild Esports Guild Esports Inactive took on the kings of CIS in M3 Champions M3 Champions Inactive Jady Yaroslav Nikolaev purp0 Semyon Borchev Chronicle Timofey Khromov Redgar Igor Vlasov , while the resurgent G2 Esports G2 Esports Inactive faced Team Liquid Team Liquid Europe Rank #14 Jamppi Elias Olkkonen nAts Ayaz Akhmetshin Enzo Enzo Mestari Mistic James Orfila Keiko Georgio Sanassy .

M3 Champions started the day by stamping their authority with a 2-0 victory over Guild Esports. Later on, Team Liquid got the better of G2 Esports in a closely fought 2-1 victory.

M3 Champions vs. Guild Esports (M3C 2-0)

M3 Champions were coming off of a rather unusual group stage. After confidently defeating Team Liquid, they suffered a surprise upset at the hands of CIS compatriots FunPlus Phoenix FunPlus Phoenix Inactive SUYGETSU Dmitry Ilyushin Zyppan Pontus Eek ANGE1 Kyrylo Karasov Shao Andrey Kiprsky ardiis Ardis Svarenieks . The rest of M3C's matches were postponed to the final week of play, which meant they had to play their last three group stage matches in consecutive days. The pressure was on, and they delivered, dominantly sweeping all three matches and securing the second seed in their group. Guild started their group strong with a 3-0 record, but couldn't overcome G2 Esports and FNATIC FNATIC Europe Rank #1 Leo Leo Jannesson Derke Nikita Sirmitev Boaster Jake Howlett Chronicle Timofey Khromov Alfajer Emir Ali Beder . Guild therefore ended the group with a 3-2 record as the third seed.

Guild opened the score on their map pick of Fracture by winning the pistol and bonus round. M3C returned fire with three rounds of their own, including a crucial 2v4 clutch in round four by Ayaz "nAts" Akhmetshin and Igor "Redgar" Vlasov to send Guild onto an eco. From here, Guild managed to find the correct adjustments and absorb the plays of M3C, only losing one more round before half time, putting the score line 8-4 in favor of Guild.

M3C started their attacking half strong, winning the first two rounds. Guild took a timeout to prepare a push into the opponent's spawn. They caught two players trying to escape on the zipline, but M3C still closed out the round despite their player and weaponry disadvantage. M3C were now at 7-8 and close to tying up the score. A well-executed thrifty round by Guild helped them re-establish their lead, but they often came just short of winning the full buy rounds. Another thrifty and a follow-up round brought the Guild lead up to 11-8, but they couldn't close out the map. A dominant 5 round streak saw the final scoreline being 13-11 in favor of M3 Champions.

Next up was Bind: a map M3C had been formidable at in the past. They started off well, winning the first two rounds and getting the Spike down on their bonus round with a slight numbers advantage. Guild decided to cut their losses and save their remaining rifles into the next round, which helped bolster their economy in order to win the next three rounds.

Now at a score of 3-3, Guild were looking to take the lead, but a well played post-plant by M3C granted them a win on a low buy round. The momentum and confidence were on the side of M3C now, as they outmaneuvered Guild around the map, winning all but the last remaining round of the half and putting them up 8-4.

Guild won a crucially important pistol round to keep their hopes alive of staying in the upper bracket. Unfortunately for them, their bonus round ended disastrously, losing against just pistols. This seemed to spell their doom, with M3 Champions losing only one more round on their way to victory to close out a confident 13-6 map of Bind. Bogdan "sheydos" Naumov managed to find great impact by picking up the Operator on Sage, getting seven kills in seven rounds with the gun and proving to be an impassable obstacle for Guild.

The M3C players displayed their individual prowess in this match, winning seven clutches to just the one of Guild. Although Guild were able to keep their own map pick close, beating the Champions finalists on their map pick of Bind proved to be too much of a challenge. M3 Champions move on to play Fnatic tomorrow in the Upper Bracket for the first slot in Masters Reykjavik, while Guild drop to the lower bracket and will play later this week.

G2 Esports vs. Team Liquid (TL 2-1)

Both G2 Esports G2 Esports Inactive and Team Liquid Team Liquid Europe Rank #14 Jamppi Elias Olkkonen nAts Ayaz Akhmetshin Enzo Enzo Mestari Mistic James Orfila Keiko Georgio Sanassy ended their respective group stages with a 3-2 record. Liquid was outclassed against the CIS powerhouses of FunPlus Phoenix and M3 Champions, but looked comfortable in the rest of their matches, running their signature unusual compositions. G2 lost out in close matches against group winner Fnatic and reigning world champions Acend Acend Europe Rank #9 ALIVE Gilad Hakim musashi Alessio Xhaferi Br0die Jack Emmott baddyG Kamil Graniczka chiwa Egor Stepanyuk Vuubit Roope Eilola , but didn't drop a map against the other teams in their group.

Following their trend of unusual agent compositions, Liquid picked two controllers – Omen and Brimstone – on their map pick of Split. With Astra falling out of favor on the new patch, G2 picked up a Brimstone as well.

G2 came out swinging, picking up the first four rounds on their defense. Liquid responded with a round win followed by a flawless round, putting the score at 4-2 and prompting G2 to take a timeout. Several close rounds followed: two went in favor of G2, followed by three for Team Liquid. With G2 on a weak purchase in the last round, Liquid looked favored to tie up the score at 6-6, but a good site hold resulted in a flawless round for G2, putting them 7-5 ahead at the half.

Both G2 and Team Liquid had been more successful on the defensive half of Split during the group stages, so despite Liquid being down at the half, they were not yet out of it. Liquid started out well by winning the first two rounds, but losing the bonus round. With both teams now on a full buy, Liquid picked up steam, winning four rounds in a row to establish an 11-8 lead. A clutch by Johan "Meddo" Renbjörk Lundborg prevented Liquid from getting to match point, but G2 couldn't muster any further rounds. Team Liquid finished the map 13-9, having only lost two rounds on their defense.

On their pick of Icebox, G2 Esports were the ones to raise eyebrows with their composition, picking up no duelists and three sentinels. They did not get off to a good start; Liquid won the first two rounds, and despite losing the bonus, worked themselves up to a 5-1 lead. Investing Auni "AvovA" Chahade's Viper's Pit on an eco helped G2 to a thrifty round win, but the momentum stayed on Liquid's side, who were significantly in the lead at halftime with an 8-4 scoreline and looking to close out the game.

The defensive half allowed G2's composition to shine. They brought the score back to 8-7 and very nearly tied it up, when Žygimantas "nukkye" Chmieliauskas took down both remaining players in a 1v2 scenario, but missed out on defusing the spike by under half a second. However, like G2, Liquid struggled to string rounds together on attack. Near the end of the half, Team Liquid found themselves down 10-12, facing down the barrel of two map points. Liquid won the first of these rounds by investing Travis "L1NK" Mendoza's Viper's Pit on site. In the last round of regulation, with a 2v3 man disadvantage, Elias "Jamppi" Olkkonen stepped up and took down all three remaining players in quick succession to send the match into overtime.

G2 put themselves in prime position to close the map out by winning the first attacking round, which had been the side both teams struggled with in regulation. Liquid responded with an attack round of their own. Yet again, G2 put themselves on match point by winning their attack round, and this time, Team Liquid couldn't respond. On G2's defense, Meddo managed to hold his ground and eliminate three players charging into the A site to round out the map for G2 at 15-13.

The teams headed to Haven as the decider, a map both teams were well-practiced on. The double controller duo of Omen and Brimstone returned for the side of Liquid, while G2 picked a double flash composition with Breach and Skye. It didn't take long for these teams to prove how closely they matched up on this map. G2 won the first two rounds, but Team Liquid retaliated, and both teams started trading rounds back and forth until the scoreline reached 5-3. At this point, Liquid were the first who were able to finally string three rounds together, before a flawless round by G2 halted their momentum and brought the scoreline at the half to 6-6.

Liquid were the first to establish a lead by winning the first two rounds of the second half. They looked poised to make it a three round lead, but not before Avova very nearly clutched up; an unfortunate 140 damage headshot from his phantom prevented Avova from completing a 1v4 ace, leaving L1NK to defuse the spike on just 10 HP.

Nevertheless, G2 were forced onto another eco and were now down 10-6. Team Liquid's composition with Jett and Chamber allowed them to run two Operators and establish strong extremity control. Nivera on his Chamber found especially great value with the gun, getting nine Op Kills and finding the opening pick eight times on Haven. G2 managed to find only two more rounds before Team Liquid closed the series out with a 13-8 victory.

Nivera impressed by topping the stat sheets at the end of the series with 254 ACS and +11 in opening duels. The opposing Chamber player in Mixwell had a solid start on Split by leading his team in ACS, but couldn't replicate the same impact on Icebox and Haven, bringing up the rear in both maps and only finding four kills on Haven.

Team Liquid advance to face FunPlus Phoenix tomorrow for a chance to represent EMEA at Masters Reykjavik, while G2 find themselves in the lower bracket, waiting to play the loser of Fnatic vs. M3 Champions later in the week.

Looking ahead

The EMEA action continues tomorrow with the upper bracket semifinals. The winners of these matches will be the first teams to book their tickets for Masters Reykjavik.

• FNATIC FNATIC Europe Rank #1 Leo Leo Jannesson Derke Nikita Sirmitev Boaster Jake Howlett Chronicle Timofey Khromov Alfajer Emir Ali Beder vs. M3 Champions M3 Champions Inactive Jady Yaroslav Nikolaev purp0 Semyon Borchev Chronicle Timofey Khromov Redgar Igor Vlasov
• FunPlus Phoenix FunPlus Phoenix Inactive SUYGETSU Dmitry Ilyushin Zyppan Pontus Eek ANGE1 Kyrylo Karasov Shao Andrey Kiprsky ardiis Ardis Svarenieks vs. Team Liquid Team Liquid Europe Rank #14 Jamppi Elias Olkkonen nAts Ayaz Akhmetshin Enzo Enzo Mestari Mistic James Orfila Keiko Georgio Sanassy

Fnatic will attempt to continue their undefeated run against M3 Champions, while Team Liquid will seek to take revenge after their defeat against FunPlus Phoenix in the group stage.