carrico
Today started the main event of the VCT EMEA Promotion tournament. This tournament will decide the two teams that will qualify for Stage 2: EMEA Challengers, joining the big boys league.
On the first day of the tournament, we had the two first series of this event. The winners of the Spanish VRL Rebels Gaming faced off against East Surge champions Anonymo Mentos, while DACH winners Fokus played the Turkish side of Surreal Esports.
Rebels Gaming vs Anonymo Mentos
Rebels Gaming came into this series as the heavy favorites. The Spanish champions hadn’t dropped a single map in the play-in as they defeated Sector One 2-0 and Surreal Esports also 2-0. However, Anonymo Mentos showed they came to play. Split was the first map, and it was Rebels Gaming pick. Despite that Anonymo Mentos quickly took control of the game.
Anonymo Mentos won the pistol round, but Rebels were able to win their semi-buy round, putting Anonymo Mentos in a weird position when it came to their economy. But Anonymo Mentos were able to bounce back and won the next seven rounds, taking an 8-4 lead to half-time.
Split is a very defensive map so winning four rounds on the attacking side was not horrible for the Spanish champions.
In the second half, Rebels Gaming won the very important pistol round and the following round as well. However, Anonymo Mentos got on the board on their attacking side in the third round and would eventually close the map 13-8.
WHAT WAS THAT @musashival pic.twitter.com/fAlmGyjlk9
— VALORANT Champions Tour EMEA (@valesports_emea) April 5, 2022
The great performances by kamyk on Omen, and xuss on Jett made the difference and gave the polish team the 1-0 lead in the series.
On Breeze, the polish side just completely steamrolled Rebels Gaming. With an overall great team performance, that saw pretty much the whole team putting up positive digits, Anonymo Mentos won the map 13-4 and the series 2-0.
With this result, they advance to the Upper Semifinal where they will face BIG, while Rebels Gaming drops down to the lower bracket.
Surreal Esports vs FOKUS
Fokus were the favorites coming into this series. Similar to Rebels Gaming the german champions also went undefeated on the play-in stage.
Bind was the first map of the series, and it was the Surreal Esports pick. The first half was very back and forth with FOKUS taking the 7-5 lead into half-time.
In the second half, FOKUS was able to take control of the game especially because of JUGi.
The ex CS:GO pro took over the game with is Jett. With seven first bloods, together with a 76% KAST, meaning he killed, assisted, or traded his teammates, and finishing the game with a score of 26-9-1, he helped FOKUS take the 1-0 lead in the series.
Icebox was a must-win map for Surreal Esports and the Turkish team started well with a pistol-round win. However, FOKUS went on a big winning streak, winning five rounds in a row.
Surreal Esports never gave up and were able to mount a nice comeback, and the first half ended with a 6-6 scoreline.
In the second half, Surreal Esports put on a clinic performance. They didn’t drop a round on their attacking side of Icebox, and won the map 13-6, forcing the third map Breeze.
If JUGi was the difference-maker for FOKUS on map 1, jeyj7y on Sova and Masic on Jett did the same for Surreal Esports on map two.
Breeze saw FOKUS once again start really strong on their attacking side, and take control of the game. They lead 8-4 at half-time.
In the second half, Surrel Esports still tried to mount a comeback and were able to reduce the lead to 11-8.
Despite that FOKUS would come out on top with a 13-9 win, with JUGi having yet another great performance.