Giants Gaming Giants Gaming Inactive Redgar Igor Vlasov Fit1nho Adolfo Gallego nukkye Žygimantas Chmieliauskas hoody Aaro Peltokangas Cloud Kirill Nehozhin bested Karmine Corp Karmine Corp Europe Rank #29 tomaszy Tomás Machado marteen Martin Pátek 2-0 in the upper semifinals of the EMEA LCQ, moving on to the upper final.

After a rough first half on Pearl, KCorp started chipping away at Giants' lead on defense. The map event went to the final round of regulation after two consecutive 1v3s and a timeout.

Giants stormed onto the B site midway through the round. With the spike planted, both teams whittled each other down to just one player alive on each side. xms nearly clutched out a 1v3, but nukkye held strong behind the B Pillar to win the 1v1 — his first of three today — and give his team the map.

That set up Giants for Split, where they dropped just five rounds before closing out the show. In that map, sh1n and Nivera were the only KCorp players with a rating over 1.00. The latter was the only player without a negative kill differential.

Giants huddle in the VCT EMEA Colisseum Photo by Hara Amorós/Riot Games/LVP

KCorp's return to Pearl for the first time since February did not go as planned, as the team started off 9-3 down. They recovered most of the deficit after switching sides, but fell short in the final round of regulation where they lost 13-11. Split was hardly balanced in comparison; Giants won their map pick 13-5 and moved on to the upper final with comfort.

The two maps' differences showed both on the scoreboard and on the statistics sheets. On Pearl, each team had three players with a rating over 1.00 and a positive kill differential. On Split, everyone on Giants but IGL rhyme boasted those same numbers, while Nivera was the only standout player on the French-speaking side.

KCorp's Split round wins came mostly thanks to clutches. ZE1SH 's 1v1 gave his team one of two rounds on defense. sh1n later clutched a 1v3 in the third round of the second half, giving his team two more rounds for a total of five.

Maybe Pearl should not have been as close.

Giants' win halts dreams of a Cinderella run from the KCorp side, who took a convincing 2-1 win over BBL Esports BBL Esports Europe Rank #39 Jamppi Elias Olkkonen sociablEE Volkan Yonal chiwa Egor Stepanyuk PROFEK Dawid Święć LewN Burak Alkan in the opening knockout round of the LCQ. The Frenchmen are now down but certainly not out; they have another shot tomorrow against Natus Vincere Natus Vincere Europe Rank #19 ANGE1 Kyrylo Karasov Shao Andrey Kiprsky in the first round of the lower bracket.

The loser will be eliminated and left with a top-six placement. The winner will move on to the Bo5 lower final, where a second win qualifies the respective roster to Valorant Champions 2023.

While KCorp have to go through at least those two matches, Giants have a much simpler path that can be completed tomorrow. Another Spanish derby has been set up in the upper final, where Giants and KOI will lock horns for the first Champions slot of the EMEA LCQ.

The two squads only have one previous bout on record, when they met in the second week of VCT EMEA league play. Giants won that match convincingly by handing KOI their second loss of the season.