Seeing as all 3 of the EMEA teams in Copenhagen will be competing today, I thought it would be fitting to look into each team's path to Champions.
7 of the 8 EMEA teams that will be participating in the LCQ have been locked in; out of the 3 teams that are currently competing in Copenhagen, 2 will directly qualify to Champions, and 1 will be sent to compete in the LCQ, depending on each team's performance in the Masters playoffs. Here are the scenarios:
Current VCT points:
FunPlus Phoenix: 200 points
FNATIC: 125 points
Guild Esports: 50 points
Since the most likely scenario is that Guild will be the team that is sent to the LCQ, sending the other 2 teams to Champions, I will focus on the scenarios for Guild first to make things simpler.
Guild needs at LEAST a top 4 finish to secure a spot in Champions, but even that may not be enough. This is because Guild needs to make up at least 75 points of ground to catch up to FNC, and 5th-6th only gives 50 more points than 7th-8th.
- With a top 2 finish, Guild will guarantee themselves a spot in Champions.
- With a 3rd place finish, the only scenario in which Guild does not qualify to champions is if FNC places 1st or 2nd AND FPX places 4th (it is not possible for all 3 EMEA teams to finish top 3), in which case FNC will easily take 1st in the standings and FPX will earn enough points to stay ahead of Guild.
- With a 4th place finish, Guild would need to either finish above FNC and/or FPX would need to place 7th-8th (I believe Guild would then win the tiebreaker with FPX due to Masters placement).
- With a 5th-8th finish, Guild will not qualify to Champions.
If Guild fails to qualify, then obviously FNC and FPX will both qualify. What happens in the scenarios where Guild qualifies for Champions? If Guild qualifies as shown above, FNC has to both finish top 4 AND finish higher than FPX to qualify for Champions, in which case they will earn at least 100 more circuit points than FPX, allowing them to make up for FPX's current 75 point lead. Otherwise, FPX will qualify over FNC, since 5th-6th only gives 50 more points than 7th-8th, which is not enough to make up the difference.
Which 2 of the 3 EMEA teams above do you guys think will qualify to Champions, and which team will be sent to face the dreaded LCQ?
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