Week four of EMEA Stage 2 is in the books, and the playoffs continue to take shape with GIANTX GIANTX Europe Rank #23 Cloud Kirill Nehozhin grubinho Grzegorz Ryczko westside Miłosz Duda Flickless Karel Maeckelbergh ara Hanceriuc Eduard-George and BBL Esports BBL Esports Europe Rank #7 Jamppi Elias Olkkonen sociablEE Volkan Yonal PROFEK Dawid Święć LewN Burak Alkan MAGNUM Martin Penkov guaranteeing an appearance in playoffs, while Team Liquid Team Liquid Europe Rank #6 paTiTek Patryk Fabrowski nAts Ayaz Akhmetshin trexx Nikita Cherednichenko Keiko Georgio Sanassy kamo Kamil Frąckowiak takes first place in Group Omega with a big win over FNATIC FNATIC Europe Rank #1 crashies Austin Roberts Boaster Jake Howlett kaajak Kajetan Haremski Chronicle Timofey Khromov Alfajer Emir Ali Beder .

In addition, with the losses of both Apeks Apeks Europe Rank #127 penny Erik Penny OLIZERA Diogo Oliveira MOLSI Michał Łącki AvovA Auni Chahade batujnax Mehmet Batu Özaslan and Gentle Mates Gentle Mates Europe Rank #96 Proxh Yusuf Emre Tunc Veqaj Sylvain Pattyn ComeBack Berkcan Şentürk Minny Patrik Hušek kamyk Maks Rychlewski , the two Ascension teams have been relegated back to tier two without a chance to defend their slot.

The results of this week's games are as follows:

The final match of the week was the most anticipated, featuring a clash between Team Liquid and FNATIC for the top spot in group Omega. With two of the top three teams in the region going toe-to-toe, a close game was expected, which is what map one delivered. Liquid found a narrow overtime win on Bind, having to make a comeback from being down 9-12. Then, on FNATIC's pick of Ascent, Liquid completely wiped the floor, nearly taking a 13-0 win. In a clash of old versus new compositions, the former showed why it was the standard for so long, completely shutting down FNATIC's attack to take a 13-1 victory. With the win, Liquid have earned the first seed out of Group Omega, bringing them one step closer to Champions.

trexx plays Boaster like a fiddle.

For the two Ascension teams, this week's match was a must win, where losing meant they would miss playoffs and be relegated from the league. Apeks was up first with their match against the also winless KOI KOI Europe Rank #259 nataNk Nathan Bocqueho baddyG Kamil Graniczka MONSTEERR Ondřej Petrů Filu Dawid Czarnecki flyuh Xavier Carlson . As has been the story with Apeks all stage, they won one map, but couldn't keep it together enough to win a second one. KOI found their first win of the stage with Filu finally having a great game after what has been a rough split for him.

Gentle Mates also went out in similar fashion to the rest of their games. They took map one against GIANTX without much challenge, and were up 9-3 on map two of Ascent. But, in line with their reputation of losing big leads, couldn't get anything going in the second half, and GIANTX made the comeback to win in overtime. Then, the M8s fell flat on map three, and watched as their spot in VCT crumbled away. On the other hand, GIANTX secured their third win of the stage, qualifying them to playoffs for the first time since 2023.

With both Apeks and Gentle Mates sitting at 0-4, they are eliminated from the group stage. They are also the bottom two teams in terms of Championship points, so neither team will get the chance to defend their spot in VCT at Ascension, and next year will feature two brand new teams in EMEA.

Another team that secured their playoff spot this week was BBL. After a rough 0-2 start to the stage, they have bounced back with two wins in a row, with a narrow win this week over Team Vitality Team Vitality Europe Rank #19 Derke Nikita Sirmitev Kicks Kimmie Laasner UNFAKE Bartosz Bernacki KovaQ Blendi Kovaci Less Felipe de Loyola Basso . After Vitality won a close bout on Lotus, they looked to close out the match in 2 maps, going up 6-0 on Icebox. However, those six rounds came from countless clutches and heroics from Less , and once he cooled off, BBL took control and dominated the rest of the map. The final map of Lotus was close, but LewN was the difference maker for BBL as they clinched their playoff spot with the win.

Less is more, but not enough to get Vitality the win.

For the other two matches, Team Heretics took a dominant win over FUT Esports FUT Esports Europe Rank #15 xeus Doğan Gözgen MrFaliN Furkan Yeğen yetujey Eray Budak cNed Mehmet Yağız İpek qRaxs Doğukan Balaban , and will face GIANTX for the top seed in Group Alpha, while Natus Vincere Natus Vincere Europe Rank #18 ANGE1 Kyrylo Karasov Shao Andrey Kiprsky alexiiik Alex Hawlasek Ruxic Uğur Güç hiro Emirhan Kat took a win over Karmine Corp Karmine Corp Europe Rank #10 saadhak Matias Delipetro Avez Hazem Khaled Elite Efe Teber SUYGETSU Dmitry Ilyushin marteen Martin Pátek to even up the race for playoffs.

Ruxic has been on a roll these past two weeks.

As EMEA moves to its final week of the group stage, this is what is at stake for each team:

Group Alpha

  • Team Heretics (4-0): Playoffs secured. Earns first seed with win over GIANTX. Earns second seed with a loss.
  • GIANTX (3-1): Playoffs secured. Earns first seed with win over Team Heretics. Earns second seed with a loss.
  • BBL Esports (2-2): Playoffs secured. Earns third seed with a win over FUT Esports. Earns fourth seed with a loss.
  • FUT Esports (2-2): Secures playoffs and third seed with win over BBL Esports. Can still make playoffs as fourth seed with loss and Team Vitality loss. Will miss playoffs with loss and Team Vitality win.
  • Team Vitality (1-3): Needs win over Gentle Mates and FUT Esports loss to make playoffs in fourth seed. Eliminated with a loss or FUT Esports win.
  • Gentle Mates (0-4): Eliminated from playoffs and is guaranteed relegation.

Group Omega

  • Team Liquid(4-0): Playoffs and first seed secured.
  • FNATIC (3-1): Playoffs and second seed secured.
  • Natus Vincere (2-2): Secures playoffs and third seed with win over KOI. Eliminated with loss and Karmine Corp win. Will enter three-way tiebreaker with loss and Karmine Corp loss.
  • Karmine Corp (2-2): Secures playoffs with win over Team Liquid. Eliminated with loss and KOI win. Will enter three-way tiebreaker with loss and Natus Vincere loss.
  • KOI (1-3): Secures playoffs with win over Natus Vincere and Karmine Corp win. Will enter three-way tiebreaker with win and Karmine Corp loss. Eliminated with loss.
  • Apeks (0-4): Eliminated from playoffs and is guaranteed relegation.

Watch it all play out next week with the final matches of the Stage 2 group stage: