The final day of the Esports World Cup's group stage saw the tournament's last four playoff spots claimed, eliminating four teams in the process.

It was yet another dominant showing for EMEA, who already claimed two of the four playoff slots by winning their group, but a disappointing one for China as they crashed out of the tournament with all four representatives missing out on the next phase of play.

Here's how day three played out:

Group Alpha

Two days after being defeated by Masters Toronto champions Paper Rex Paper Rex Asia-Pacific Rank #1 PatMen Patrick Mendoza Jinggg Wang Jing Jie f0rsakeN Jason Susanto d4v41 Khalish Rusyaidee something Ilya Petrov for the top seed of Group Alpha, Karmine Corp Karmine Corp Europe Rank #10 saadhak Matias Delipetro Avez Hazem Khaled Elite Efe Teber SUYGETSU Dmitry Ilyushin marteen Martin Pátek took on Chinese side Bilibili Gaming Bilibili Gaming China Rank #3 whzy Wang Haozhe (王昊哲) Levius Lu Yinzhong (卢胤中) rushia Wang Xiaojie (王晓杰) nephh Marcus Tan Knight Liu Yuxiang (刘宇翔) . BiliBili was coming off of a 2-1 victory over a weakened G2 Esports G2 Esports North America Rank #3 jawgemo Alexander Mor trent Trent Cairns valyn Jacob Batio JonahP Jonah Pulice leaf Nathan Orf , playing with assistant coach shhhack in place of leaf , who was out with a health issue.

The match began on KC's Icebox, the same map that they picked against PRX and lost 13-5. The map, typically more attacker-sided, was anything but that for BLG. In the series-clinching map against G2, defender-sided rounds outnumbered attacking rounds 15-8 in a 13-11 finish. BLG ended their opening attack half down 9-3, and Karmine Corp, with a double-Initiator, zero-Duelist team comp, picked apart BiliBili's defense to win 13-5.

On BLG's pick of Lotus, KC opted for a double-Duelist comp pairing marteen 's Yoru with Avez 's Raze while BLG fielded the popular double-Controller comp of Omen and Viper.

Karmine Corp jumped out to a 7-2 lead on attack, and entered halftime with an 8-4 lead. Led by star Duelist whzy on attack, BLG had little to no issues shutting out KC's defense. whzy picked up 16 of his map-leading 24 kills on attack, helping BLG to a 13-11 victory.

KC continued with its double-Duelist approach on Sunset, with marteen staying on Yoru and Avez on Phoenix. After picking up seven rounds on attack, BLG moved to defense, struggling to hold back KC's aggressive approach. Even when the rounds looked won for BLG, moments of magic helped KC to a 7-0 run to reach match point.

While two hiccups gave BLG glimmers of hope, KC took the map 13-9, moving on to the playoffs.

Group B

Having met on the international stage twice in the last year, DRX DRX Korea Rank #2 Flicker Kim Tae-hee (김태희) Flashback Cho Min-hyuk (조민혁) MaKo Kim Myeong-gwan (김명관) free1ng No Ha-jun (노하준) HYUNMIN Song Hyun-min (송현민) Estrella Park Gun (박건) BeYN Kang Ha-bin (강하빈) and Sentinels Sentinels North America Rank #1 N4RRATE Marshall Massey bang Sean Bezerra Zellsis Jordan Montemurro zekken Zachary Patrone johnqt Mohamed Amine Ouarid clashed heads in the Group B decider. Sentinels took a 2-0 victory at Champions 2024, while DRX got revenge with a 2-0 at Masters Bangkok.

Near-mirror comps were played on DRX's pick of Lotus, with both teams running the Omen-Viper Controller pairing, complemented by Fade and Vyse. DRX opted to put HYUNMIN on Neon, while Sentinels' zekken was on Raze. While giving up seven on attack may have given DRX hope on its own attack half, Sentinels' defense half was too strong. A 6-2 shutdown of DRX's attacking half gave Sentinels a 13-7 victory.

After stealing away DRX's map pick, the match shifted onto Sunset, one of Sentinels' best maps since its introduction into Valorant. It was never really close on this map, as Sentinels claimed a 9-3 halftime advantage, which they followed up to end the game 13-4.

Following the 2-0, DRX heads home from the event, while Sentinels moves on to the playoffs.

Group C

After facing a blowout loss in their opening match at the hands of NRG NRG North America Rank #4 s0m Sam Oh brawk Brock Somerhalder mada Adam Pampuch skuba Logan Jenkins Ethan Ethan Arnold , Team Heretics Team Heretics Europe Rank #2 MiniBoo Dominykas Lukaševičius Wo0t Mert Alkan RieNs Enes Ecirli benjyfishy Benjamin David Fish Boo Ričardas Lukaševičius bounced back but looked shaky in a 2-1 win over Titan Esports Club Titan Esports Club China Rank #15 Haodong Guo Haodong (郭浩东) lucas Yunkun Lu (路昀昆) Abo Han Bohao (韩博皓) TvirusLuke Chen Cheng-ching (陈振庆) Coco Ding Dajian (丁达建) . To start their match against Rex Regum Qeon Rex Regum Qeon Asia-Pacific Rank #7 Monyet Cahya Nugraha xffero David Monangin Jemkin Maksim Batorov Kushy Bryan Carlos Setiawan crazyguy Ngô Công Anh , they looked anything but that.

On their map pick of Sunset, they looked unstoppable, dealing with RRQ's attack with ease and then making quick work of them on their defense to seal the deal on a 13-3 victory.

Icebox was a different story for Team Heretics. While one of RRQ's stronger maps, it is one of Team Heretics' most polarizing. In 2025, they've had everything from blowout victories, like a 13-2 win over Team Liquid Team Liquid Europe Rank #11 paTiTek Patryk Fabrowski nAts Ayaz Akhmetshin trexx Nikita Cherednichenko Keiko Georgio Sanassy kamo Kamil Frąckowiak , to a 13-10 loss to Titan the day before this match was played.

Heretics seemed to have worked out any issues on the map quickly. Their zero-Duelist comp, placing MiniBoo on Omen, earned them a 9-3 advantage on attack. Once the teams switched sides, RRQ began having success on attack. RRQ had a 9-3 half of their own to force overtime, where the teams exchanged a set of attacking rounds before Team Heretics finally clinched a defending round to win the map and series.

It was an unusually quiet performance for Jemkin on attack, the side where he picked up just three of his 17 kills. Meanwhile, MiniBoo was stellar. He picked up 31 kills, shooting a sharp 51% headshot percentage in the process.

Group D

In a rematch of the opening round, Gen.G Gen.G Korea Rank #1 Foxy9 Jung Jae-sung (정재성) Ash Ha Hyun-cheol (하현철) t3xture Kim Na-ra (김나라) Munchkin Byeon Sang-beom (변상범) Suggest Seo Jae-young (서재영) Karon Kim Won-tae (김원태) and EDward Gaming EDward Gaming China Rank #2 ZmjjKK Zheng Yongkang (郑永康) zjc Zhang Juncheng (张峻程) nobody Wang Senxu (王森旭) CHICHOO Wan Shunzhi (万顺治) Smoggy Zhang Zhao (张钊) clashed in a fight to claim the final playoff spot from what has been dubbed the group of death. The best-of-one opening matchup saw Gen.G dominate, serving a 13-4 victory over the Champions 2024 winners on Icebox.

EDG's map pick of Lotus started the series, and it fielded an interesting clash of comps. While both teams ran the Viper-Omen pairing, Gen.G opted for Killjoy and Raze, while EDG opted for Vyse and Neon. Gen.G picked up eight rounds on attack, and had their work cut out on defense: stop ZmjjKK .

They did just that, holding the reigning world MVP to just nine kills in the game and three on his team's attacking half en route to a close, but not close enough, 13-8 win.

EDG would need a strong start on Haven, one of Gen.G's stronger maps, if they wanted to force a third map. After picking up the pistol round and ensuing anti-eco, EDG looked to snowball on attack, but failed to do so.

Gen.G began rolling a snowball of their own, shutting down a potential bonus round, winning the clash against near-full buy for EDG, and then winning an improbable round to shut down a thrifty.

Gen.G went on to win the next seven rounds, ending their defender side with a 10-2 lead. While EDG snatched away another pistol and anti-eco, the attacking Gen.G players wrapped up business once they got their hands on bigger guns, winning 13-4.

Playoffs

After sending all four of its representatives to the playoffs, EMEA will feel hard done by the draw, which pits all of its teams against each other in the opening round of the single-elimination, eight-team bracket.

The next matches are as follows:

• FNATIC vs. Karmine Corp
• Paper Rex vs. Sentinels
• NRG vs. Gen.G
• BBL Esports vs. Team Heretics