The third week of action in VCT EMEA Stage 1 has wrapped up, with two of the region's eight playoff slots claimed.

Here's how the matches played out:

Gentle Mates and Natus Vincere started the stage on opposite trajectories, with one squad seemingly struggling to adapt to the game's post-Yoru nerf era and one team starting off with a bang despite fielding a stand-in. Both teams entered this match 1-1, but the matchup was not particularly close. As one of the region's most well-suited teams to playing with two Duelists, M8 rallied behind marteen 's match-high 45 kills to cruise to a 2-0 win, while NAVI falls to 0-2 with former Heretics man ComeBack in the squad.

GLYPH closes out the series in style.

Between Team Heretics and Karmine Corp were two teams struggling in their own respective ways and searching for their first wins of the stage. A chaotic match saw both teams dominate the other's map picks before Heretics dominated the decider map of Fracture 13-7 to move to 2-1.

In arguably the highest-stakes match of the week, FUT took down Team Liquid 2-0 to claim Group Alpha's first playoff spot. Both teams entered the match at 2-0, meaning the winner claimed a playoff spot. FUT flipped Liquid's pick of Breeze, winning eight straight rounds after going down 4-0 to eventually steal the map 13-9. On FUT's own pick of Haven, xeus dominated in his second-straight map on Jett, dropping 30 kills in a double-overtime map that ended with FUT winning 15-13.

In Group Omega, play began with GIANTX claiming a big 2-1 win over BBL. While BBL started the year as the region's hottest team, GX was one of the more disappointing teams, failing to start the year strong after ending Stage 2 last year in second. GX beat BBL's Breach-Sova comp on Haven to win the Turkish squad's pick 13-11, but then lost its own map pick of Lotus up against a Neon-Raze double-Duelist comp. On the decider map of Split, GX closed the series out on a run of eight straight rounds to win 13-9.

Vitality, looking to bounce back from its loss to FNATIC in the previous week, went up against Eternal Fire in week three and was dealt yet another 2-0 loss. After EF claimed its pick of Bind, Vitality faltered on its own pick of Lotus. After going up 6-3 in its attacking first half, Eternal Fire won ten straight rounds, led by Duelist Izzy , to close out the series.

audaz with a clean ace to wrap up the anti-eco.

In the Group Omega's last match, a 2-0 win over PCIFIC helped FNATIC clinch the group's first playoff spot. Both teams used a double-Duelist, double-Controller comp on Split, with PCF going with a Fade and FNC going for Skye. Both teams had more success on attack, with FNATIC fighting past a 7-5 halftime deficit to win 13-11. kaajak dropped 28 on the map, but on FNC's pick of Lotus, that level of production was not needed. Against PCF's Sage-Veto double-Sentinel comp, FNATIC opened the map on a 10-0 run, looking borderline unstoppable. PCIFIC found two rounds to end the half and won the pistol to start its attack, but a loss in the would-be bonus round spelled the beginning of the end as FNATIC won 13-4.

The group standings after week three are as follows, with an asterisk denoting which teams have claimed playoff spots:

Group Alpha

Group Omega

With two playoff slots claimed, a large chunk of the remaining six slots could be claimed next week. The matches for the penultimate week of the group stage are as follows: