Gambit Esports Gambit Esports Inactive Redgar Igor Vlasov Chronicle Timofey Khromov d3ffo Nikita Sudakov sheydos Bogdan Naumov nAts Ayaz Akhmetshin are the Stage 3: EMEA Challengers Playoffs winners, besting Papara SuperMassive Papara SuperMassive Europe Rank #14 skylen Asil Yalçın ip0TT Yiğit Karadeniz VenTT Emre Bozkurt Celasun Emir Celasun umu7 Umut Pekdoğan 3-1.

The EMEA Challengers Playoffs culminated today, in a final that only 2.6% of people predicted in the VLR.gg Pick'Ems.

The first map chosen for the day, by Gambit, was Ascent. It's a map both teams love, but it was total SuperMassive Blaze domination. Gambit just couldn't get their foot in the door, leading to a crushing 13-1 map. The final round looked lost for SuperMassive Blaze, but Izzy's Spectre sprayed three down on B to seal the deal.

"They were better today. We had a really bad individual game, we didn't communicate well. They're good, for sure, on this map," Ayaz "nAts" Akhmetshin admitted. "We told ourselves 'it happens, don't worry about it, we'll be fine.'"

On Split, Turko's 1v2 clutch on round two gave his team an early lead 4-1. Redgar and nAts held back an A push which allowed them to creep back up and eventually tie the first half off a Chronicle 4K inside his Viper's Pit. Gambit kicked their attacking side off with success by taking four rounds and going up 9-7.

Gambit requested a timeout at this point, but it favored Blaze as they took three rounds, the third due to a 1v2 retake from Izzy on A. Gambit just held on to the map 13-11.

Chronicle even laughed when he realized russ had passed him.

Next up was Bind, the same map where Gambit bested Liquid, G2 and Acend. The Russian squad gave an absolute masterclass on this map. While SuperMassive Blaze's players struggled even for a single 3K, Gambit managed three 3Ks and two 4Ks. The squad won three rounds thanks to clutches, with Redgar clutching a 1v3 on round 12 that gave them the 9-3 half lead and, later, the 13-5 win.

This win marked a continuation of Gambit's solid Bind streak. Since they've come into the EMEA Challengers Playoffs, the squad has played this map five times and only lost once, 13-7, to Acend. "I don't know if we're one of the best teams on Bind. Before this tournament our Bind was something weird. We're playing good right now, but not the best. We won against Acend, who are really good on Bind. But we're good," nAts said.

Haven was the fourth map for Gambit's second Bo5 in a row. Last time we saw them play, a quirky composition came out of them with Redgar on the Reyna, which the IGL later explained. Today's composition was even crazier, with d3ffo opting for the Raze and Redgar jumping on the Jett.

Their flex picks stunned SuperMassive Blaze, who were only able to pick up three rounds across the entire map.

After losing Ascent 13-1, the squad came back in explosive fashion and completely demolished the Turkish team, losing 19 rounds across the last three maps of the series. Gambit have crushed both the favorites for the EMEA title.

It might have been a seeding game, but Gambit still wanted the title.

"[Acend and SuperMassive Blaze] are really good teams. I don't know what happened to Acend in the upper final against Blaze, I though they would win the game. Both of them are really good. I want to play against them in Berlin," nAts said.

The Gambit Sentinel is considered by many the tournament's breakout player. Despite largely keeping to the Cypher and Viper, nAts was consistently on top of the scoreboard. "Cypher is one of my favorite Agents, even on Haven. I like him, I like his abilities and how you use him," he said.

Coming into the tournament, Blaze's expectations weren't certain since the team was so fresh. Nevertheless, they showed up strong, defeating FunPlus Phoenix, G2 and even Acend. The grand final just wasn't theirs to win. "Blaze surprised me a lot," nAts revealed.

Over 67% of Pick'Ems counted on an Acend Acend Inactive ALIVE Gilad Hakim musashi Alessio Xhaferi pyrolll Artur Minin cullumx Nikolaj Cullum Andersen chiwa Egor Stepanyuk win, with G2 Esports G2 Esports Inactive being predicted to win by over 18% of Pick'Ems. Against the expectations of many, Gambit showed they have what it takes to defeat titans such as the teams mentioned above, and, today, SuperMassive Blaze. Gambit are the first EMEA seed going into Berlin.

"I want to play against Sentinels Sentinels North America Rank #4 N4RRATE Marshall Massey bang Sean Bezerra Zellsis Jordan Montemurro zekken Zachary Patrone johnqt Mohamed Amine Ouarid , of course," nAts said. "To be honest, I want to face all the teams but it's impossible. If I had to point some teams out it'd be Sentinels, for sure, Vision Strikers Vision Strikers Inactive stax Kim Gu-taek (김구택) Rb Goo Sang-min (구상민) Zest Kim Ki-seok (김기석) BuZz Yu Byung-chul (유병철) MaKo Kim Myeong-gwan (김명관) , Inactive ... and I don't remember other team's regions but these three for sure."

But aside from being the first seed, they are the team to beat. Gambit defeated Liquid. Gambit defeated G2. Gambit defeated Acend and today SuperMassive Blaze. The Verti Music Hall will be the stage of Gambit's first international demonstration. Who can stop them?