With the EU Masters Play-In group stage now concluded, the remaining eight teams will soon become four with the last quartet of sides earning spots alongside the higher-seeded outfits in the European Masters Main Event.
The Play-In groups were held across two days, with four groups that all saw four sides play a double-round robin to move on to the knockout section. Now, the Knockouts will narrow down the competition even more. Here are the matchups to be on the lookout for.
All knockout matches will take place on Thursday, April 7, and will all be decided through best-of-three series.
France’s Vitaliy.Bee, Vitality’s academy lineup, made light work of Group C as they dropped only one game to top the group. They enter the series as clear favourites ahead of EGN, who made it out of group D with a less-than-impressive 2-4 record and scraped through via a tiebreaker win over Zero Tenacity.
Barcelona’s newly formed SuperLiga team has done well, going 5-1 in their Play-In group. Standing in their way of a Main Event spot is the NLC’s Bifrost, a young team with a wealth of ERL experience who will fancy themselves against Spain’s third seed.
After faltering disastrously in the LFL playoffs, Karmine Corp seems to be right back on track after steamrolling through group D. They unsurprisingly enter the series against the Ultraliga’s Iron Wolves as heavy favorites, after which they will become a frightening prospect as a fourth-seeded team in the Main Event.
The only other undefeated side along with KC, the Prime League’s Unicorns of Love also enter their BO3 as clear favorites as they are set to take on the Czech Republic’s Entropiq. The latter did well to qualify from that included the tough Macko Esports roster, having qualified for EUM as the Hitpoint Masters’ number one seed.
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