carrico
Day 5 marks the end of the VCT EMEA Promotion tournament. In the past five days, six teams battled each other for a spot in the Stage 2 EMEA Challengers.
FOKUS already have their ticket for the Stage 2 EMEA Challengers, after defeating BIG 2-0 yesterday in the Upper final.
However, there was still one more ticket for the Stage 2 EMEA Challengers, and it was for this prize BIG and Surreal Esports faced each other today in a best-of-five series.
BIG vs Surreal Esports
BIG picked Bind and Fracture, while Surreal Esports chose Icebox and Ascent. Breeze would be the decider match if necessary.
Bind was a very close game. In this map, we could see how close the level of the two teams was, and that this would probably not be an easy 3-0 for BIG as a lot of people predicted.
The first half finished 6-6, with this being a very good result for BIG since the German team was on their attacking side.
In the second half, BIG showed why they are so good on the defensive side of Bind. Winning five straight rounds BIG took control of the game and was only two rounds away from taking the series lead.
Surreal Esports put on a valiant fight but BIG was able to take map one 13-10 and was now in the driver seat of this series.
Let's go @aslan_vt! ? #VCT pic.twitter.com/i8r16TENWf
— BIG (@BIGCLANgg) April 9, 2022
Icebox first half was a little bit more one-sided, with BIG taking an early commanding 6-2 lead on the defensive side, on a map that is considered a very attacking sided map.
Surreal Esports wasn’t being able to find success on their executes, with BIG having a very good read of what their opponents wanted to do, and being very quick at stopping them.
.@gobelante and @TwistenVAL holding down the A-Side! ? #VCT pic.twitter.com/rHXkNABcV1
— BIG (@BIGCLANgg) April 9, 2022
BIG continued to dominate on their defensive side and ended the first half with a 10-2 lead, and the German squad was close to taking map two and making it 2-0 in their favor.
However, Surreal Esports wasn’t going down that easily. The Turkish champions went on a seven-round winning streak and the momentum completely switched.
Now it was BIG who was searching for an answer on their attacking side, while Surreal Esports was in complete control of the game.
When everything looked to be going well for the Turkish squad, the experience of the BIG players and some individually great moments saw them winning three rounds in a row and closing out the map 13-9.
What a round to end Icebox! Let's make #VCTEMEA with a clean sweep! ? #GOBIG pic.twitter.com/BKP61mA2Qz
— BIG (@BIGCLANgg) April 9, 2022
Now BIG only needed one more win to get their qualification spot to Stage 2 EMEA Challengers they desired so much.
As for Surreal Esports, they would have the extremely difficult task of reverse sweeping this series, in order to achieve their goal of qualifying for the Stage 2 EMEA Challengers.
Going into Fracture we needed to see a good attacking side by Surreal Esports. Being down two zero in the series gave the Turkish squad no room for errors.
However, BIG once again dominated on their defensive side, the team was being very proactive and was finding success with that approach.
.@TwistenVAL is going crazy! ? #VCT pic.twitter.com/kYHrZX9ZHl
— BIG (@BIGCLANgg) April 9, 2022
The first half finished with BIG leading 8-4, and everything was pointing to a 3-0 for the German team.
With BIG winning the pistol round it all looked said and done. Surreal Esports would have to pull off a comeback for the ages.
Surreal Esports poured their heath on this second half and were able to reduce BIG lead to 11-10.
THAT IS HOW YOU END IT @TwistenVAL!! pic.twitter.com/Gl3rYAaGst
— VALORANT Champions Tour EMEA (@valesports_emea) April 9, 2022
Despite that, their efforts turned out to be in vain as the German squad eventually closed out the map 13-10 and will be going to the Stage 2 EMEA Challengers, where they will certainly hope to have a better performance this time.
As for Surreal Esports they had a great tournament run. Unfortunately, this was not their time but they have a very promising future ahead of them.