Can they go on to win Challengers now?
Two of the top three Group B teams in the VCT EMEA Challengers 2 faced each other once again in the playoffs. This time they were in the upper bracket and at stake as an invite to Masters 2. Guild came out ahead in this rematch of the Group stage and earned themselves an invitation to Masters Berlin LAN.
Guild had faced M3C in their first match of the Challengers group stage. The series had resulted in a 2-0 victory for Guild and this rematch in the playoffs was no different.
“I want to say Thank you all for the Copium. I know a lot of you have been waiting for this for a long time. A lot of you guys thought we were cursed. I want to be the first one on this team to say 'We f***ing broke it'”
Guild becomes first team to qualify for Masters LAN
Guild started off strong with a dominant attacking side getting to the infamous 9-3 score. For Guild fans, this score might have made them nervous, but it was not to be today.
M3C won the first three rounds and looked set to win every more. However, the fourth round in the second half was a nail-biter with M3C missing out on the defuse by a few milliseconds. The chaotic round was all that Guild needed to get ever so close to the finish line. Eventually, Guild won the map with a 13-6 score.
We had a general idea of how they anted to play. We kind of understand that all within the team so we all played crucial parts as to how we're calling around what they're going to do, what we expect to happen. That's basically how we played Breeze.
After winning the first map, Guild was one map away from qualifying to the Berlin Masters. The second map, Fracture was much more competitive with Guild getting to seven rounds in the first half. A 7-5 score was not a difficult one for M3C to comeback and they looked very competitive as well. However, Guild managed a string of rounds in mid-second half, which catapulted them to over the finish line.
"Thank you all for the Copium. I know a lot of you have been waiting for this for a long time"
The second map was very close with M3C managing 11 rounds. Chronicle, nats and Sheydos all have amazing individual performances but they proved inadequate for M3C in the series. While Trexx and sayf were the top fraggers for Guild on the final map, a few crucial calls clutch situations were enough for Guild to get that slight advantage over M3C.
With this victory, Sayf and co. move on to the top three at the event. Guild have also secured an invitation to the Masters Berlin LAN - only the top three teams from Challengers 2 EMEA will receive a direct invite.
Stay tuned to esports.gg for the latest Valorant news and updates.