The second day of the VCT EMEA saw FUT Esports FUT Esports Europe Rank #8 xeus Doğan Gözgen MrFaliN Furkan Yeğen yetujey Eray Budak AtaKaptan Ata Tan qRaxs Doğukan Balaban beat Team Heretics Team Heretics Europe Rank #1 MiniBoo Dominykas Lukaševičius Wo0t Mert Alkan RieNs Enes Ecirli benjyfishy Benjamin David Fish Boo Ričardas Lukaševičius and Team Vitality Team Vitality Europe Rank #2 trexx Nikita Cherednichenko Derke Nikita Sirmitev Kicks Kimmie Laasner Sayf Saif Jibraeel Less Felipe de Loyola Basso move past Team Liquid Team Liquid Europe Rank #11 paTiTek Patryk Fabrowski kamyk Maks Rychlewski nAts Ayaz Akhmetshin Keiko Georgio Sanassy kamo Kamil Frąckowiak , respectively, cementing their first VCT wins this year.

FUT made a statement by sweeping Heretics with a dominant win on the latter's pick, while Vitality had to prise a 2-1 win from Liquid to kick off the VCT EMEA on the right foot.

VCT EMEA's superweek continues until Friday, with two matches each day.

Photo by Hara Amorós/Riot Games/LVP

Team Heretics vs. FUT Esports (FUT 2-0)

Unlike most of the squads in VCT EMEA, Heretics and FUT's new squads have already played against each other. The two met at Red Bull Home Ground 3 in December, where Heretics took a 2-0 win — their only win in groups.

The first half of Pearl was a disaster for Heretics, who had picked the map. By the time FUT were up 7-1, Mixwell had already taken two timeouts. Heretics took a second point, but FUT were unfazed and pressed on to an 11-2 lead. After Heretics bought in for a third round, MrFaliN took down three to put his team on map point. Two rounds later, FUT won Pearl 13-4.

qw1 opened the day with an absurdly strong map, clocking in a 2.4 KD while scoring four entry kills. He eclipsed everyone with his 1.63 rating, seconded only by teammates MrFaliN and qRaxs , who stood at 1.50. He also had 224 ADR, the second-highest value thus far in the VCT EMEA.

qRaxs and AtaKaptan opened up FUT's Lotus pick with a 3K and a 4K, respectively, which seemed to bode well for the squad. They were quickly shut down by Heretics' zeek , who managed a 1v1 against MrFaliN to send his team on an eight-round streak.

That streak seemed to falter in the later stages of the half, as Heretics needed three individual plays from AvovA , Mixwell and Boo to reach an 8-2 lead. qRaxs clutched against Boo and MrFaliN found a 3K that narrowed the gap to 8-4 by halftime.

qRaxs kept up his performance with a 1v4 on the second pistol round, catapulting FUT into an eight-round streak that broke through Heretics' timeout at 8-8. With FUT up 12-8, Heretics momentarily halted their streak with a strong C hold, but the Turks soon put their opponents to rest with a 13-9 victory in the second map.

AvovA was Heretics' saving grace on Lotus, being one of just two players on the server (and the only one on his team) to slay 20 or more players. Despite his strong numbers and 1.22 rating, the Dane was overshadowed by FUT's average 78% KAST. All of the team's players averaged a 0.90 rating or higher. MrFaliN led the charge with nearly 290 ACS.

FUT's win today levels the teams' head-to-head record, after Heretics had taken a 2-0 win in Red Bull Home Ground. Each team will play one more match during this superweek: FUT play against Team Liquid on Thursday, while Heretics have a match against Karmine Corp Karmine Corp Europe Rank #164 saadhak Matias Delipetro Avez Hazem Khaled Elite Efe Teber SUYGETSU Dmitry Ilyushin marteen Martin Pátek scheduled for Friday.

Team Liquid vs. Team Vitality (VIT 2-1)

Liquid and Vitality's newest lineups hadn't yet met on the server prior to today. Both teams had short outings at LOCK//IN: the former was eliminated in the opening round by Team Secret Team Secret Asia-Pacific Rank #9 invy Adrian Jiggs Reyes JessieVash Jessie Cuyco Wild0reoo Brheyanne Christ Reyes 2GE James Goopio Jremy Jeremy Cabrera , while the latter were knocked out one round later by LEVIATÁN LEVIATÁN Latin America South Rank #1 Demon1 Max Mazanov tex Ian Botsch kiNgg Francisco Aravena C0M Corbin Lee nataNk Nathan Bocqueho .

Vitality didn't falter in the early stages of their Haven pick, ignoring a Liquid timeout for an uncontested 8-0 lead, which they capped with a 3K from Twisten 's Jett. A strong defense from Liquid finally gave them a point, prompting Vitality to take their own timeout and convert a round off of another 3K from their Jett. Liquid took the final two rounds of the half, but they were still down 9-3.

nAts attempted to take the game into his own hands, taking down three to give Liquid a fourth point. While Vitality dropped one more round, MOLSI and Destrian immediately put their team back in the game with two 3Ks in two rounds, reaching a 12-5 map point. Sayf won Liquid their sixth and final round in a 1v1 against Twisten, just before BONECOLD & co. closed out the map 13-6.

Despite taking down 17 players, Twisten clocked in just over 1.00 rating, catching most of his frags in economically weak rounds for Liquid. The highest rating belonged to IGL BONECOLD, who slew 13 and assisted in 13 other kills, averaging a 1.43 rating.

Liquid didn't let the Haven loss get to them, swiftly replying on Fracture. The Redgar -led squad took full control of the map, dropping just two rounds to Vitality — one of them off a 4K from Twisten. They pushed the series to Lotus with a quick and simple 13-2 win.

Liquid had nearly as many 3Ks as Vitality had multikills in general. Sayf, who scored three of those triples, also accounted for 23 frags (five openers) and nearly 400 ACS. His 2.25 rating is the highest of the VCT so far; the Swede also featured a 93% KAST and 261 ADR.

Between both teams, Lotus had only been played by Vitality in a 13-6 victory over Global Esports Global Esports Asia-Pacific Rank #37 UdoTan Go Kyung-won (고경원) Kr1stal Savva Fedorov kellyS Kelly Sedillo Papi Federico Evangelista Deryeon Derrick Yee at LOCK//IN. They kicked off this map with a 5-1 lead off of 3Ks from BONECOLD and MOLSI. After winning a second round, Liquid swung back into the game with a 3K from Jamppi that narrowed the gap to 5-3. Vitality called a timeout, but their opponents pressed on and eventually took over the half with a six-round streak that put them ahead 7-5.

But Vitality quickly tied the map at 8-8 off of a 1v3 from Twisten, and they didn't stop there. The bees kept going until they reached a 10-8 lead, at which point a 1v2 from Jamppi brought the game back to a tie at 10-10. Twisten pulled out his Judge and mowed down three in the following round, giving way for a 13-10 Vitality win that closed out the series.

Twisten and Jamppi were the playmakers for Vitality and Liquid, respectively, dominating the top of the leaderboard. The Finn, who spent this series on initiators, was the frontman for Liquid on Lotus with a 1.54 rating and 300 ACS. Sayf also stood out on the decider, finding nine opening kills in a total of 19 slain.

Liquid will return to the Colosseum to play FUT on Thursday, the same day Vitality are scheduled to play KOI KOI Europe Rank #29 grubinho Grzegorz Ryczko sheydos Bogdan Naumov Filu Dawid Czarnecki flyuh Xavier Carlson soulcas Dom Sulcas in the second match of the day.

Looking Ahead

The VCT EMEA superweek continues tomorrow with two more matches. Natus Vincere Natus Vincere Europe Rank #17 ANGE1 Kyrylo Karasov Shao Andrey Kiprsky Ruxic Uğur Güç hiro Emirhan Kat koalanoob Gianfranco Potestio and Giants Gaming Giants Gaming Inactive Redgar Igor Vlasov Fit1nho Adolfo Gallego nukkye Žygimantas Chmieliauskas hoody Aaro Peltokangas Cloud Kirill Nehozhin will face off in each team's second match, while Karmine Corp and BBL Esports BBL Esports Europe Rank #18 Jamppi Elias Olkkonen sociablEE Volkan Yonal PROFEK Dawid Święć vakk Vakaris Bebravičius stand-in LewN Burak Alkan take the stage for the first time.

• Natus Vincere vs. Giants Gaming
• Karmine Corp vs. BBL Esports