The second week of EMEA Challengers competition has come to an end. This week of matches in Group B was marked by Guild Esports Guild Esports Inactive , who upset Champions winners Acend Acend Inactive ALIVE Gilad Hakim musashi Alessio Xhaferi pyrolll Artur Minin cullumx Nikolaj Cullum Andersen chiwa Egor Stepanyuk 2-1 to finish the week atop the scoreboard.

After this week's matches, Guild currently lead the group alongside FNATIC FNATIC Europe Rank #3 crashies Austin Roberts Boaster Jake Howlett kaajak Kajetan Haremski Chronicle Timofey Khromov Alfajer Emir Ali Beder , each holding a record of two wins and zero losses. Acend and G2 Esports G2 Esports Inactive sit amid the group with one win and one loss, while the Turkish squads of Papara SuperMassive Papara SuperMassive Europe Rank #14 skylen Asil Yalçın ip0TT Yiğit Karadeniz VenTT Emre Bozkurt umu7 Umut Pekdoğan and BBL Esports BBL Esports Europe Rank #34 Jamppi Elias Olkkonen sociablEE Volkan Yonal chiwa Egor Stepanyuk PROFEK Dawid Święć LewN Burak Alkan are yet to find victory.

Guild Esports vs. Acend (GLD 2-1)

This match was one of the most anticipated of Group B. According to Saif "Sayf" Jibraeel, winning this match would open up the entire group and make life much easier.

Guild showed up with that same conviction on Split, quickly amassing a 9-3 lead by the first half. Mehmet "cNed" Yağız İpek gave his team the first two rounds with a 4K and 3K, respectively, while a 4K from Aleksander "zeek" Zygmunt gave his team the third point. But, just like it did to FunPlus Phoenix FunPlus Phoenix Inactive SUYGETSU Dmitry Ilyushin Zyppan Pontus Eek ANGE1 Kyrylo Karasov Shao Andrey Kiprsky ardiis Ardis Svarenieks in Group A, the “9-3 curse” occupied its role and the result flipped drastically, as Guild only secured two rounds in the second half. Conversely, Acend managed to secure a 13-11 win on their pick.

The match moved onto Breeze, Guild's pick and one they had to win to stay alive. Early on, the teams tied the result at 2-2, but Acend were kept trailing for the remainder of the map. Guild left the series tied up with a 13-9 win that meant the match would move on to Fracture.

Prior to this match, Acend had only played Fracture twice and won once. Guild hadn't played a single official match on the map. Nevertheless, Guild threw everything at Acend and left their opponents no room. A standout performance from Jose "koldamenta" Luis Aranguren, who bagged two 4K's and a 3.25 KDA, gave his team a 13-4 win that concluded one of the biggest upsets of EMEA in 2022.

koldamenta's Fracture performance still didn't shadow Sayf's series performance, who finished the game with 12 first bloods and a 1.81 KDA, tied with Russel "Russ" Mendes for the most multikills at 14.

Prepare for trouble, and make it double.

BBL Esports vs. Fnatic (FNC 2-0)

The final game of the second day was played between BBL and Fnatic. Two teams with a long history in the VCT, the latter even carrying an international record, but they have never got the chance to play against each other.

"A rule that I kind of go by is that every team is competing in this tournament because every team believes that they can win, they can be champions, so you shouldn't really underestimate anyone," Jake "Boaster" Howlett said. "When it comes to all of our opponents in our group, there's no underestimating no matter what people on social media and whatnot are saying."

"When it came to G2, there was preparation being done. When it came to BBL… I was definitely scared of the potential chance of them just out-aiming us and really bringing that Turkish superpower aim."

Martin "MAGNUM" Penkov's brain is bigger than everyone else's.

BBL picked Icebox to start the match, but soon found their pick backfired, going 8-1 down. Fnatic won the first half 9-3, but didn't let any curse approach them. After some initial struggles, the Boaster-led squad closed out the first map of the series 13-6.

"I thought the Icebox pick was a bit, like, 'eh?' Like, why would they pick Icebox? It's one of our favorite maps," Boaster said. "We knew that they weren't very good on Bind either. We knew they didn't like Bind based off their previous bans. I thought they'd ban our Icebox just out of respect for our results and our dominance. And I don't even know how we're winning the map, we seem to just be pretty good at it, it seems."

"That always helps: having one map that you're consistent on. It's like Acend for Bind. We always have one map. We used to be the Bind kings, but now I'm going to try and keep the Icebox throne if I can," Boaster said.

Ascent was Fnatic's pick, and they justified that with a 4-0 start. That was the biggest advantage any of the two teams would find throughout the map, as it was kept close through and through. BBL were the first to reach double digits at 10-8. In spite of that, two unusual defuse mistakes meant Fnatic took the win 13-10 to close out the series.

"I didn't want them coming through the Astra ulti," Boaster said. "And as the Astra ulti was coming down I threw my next flash, so it was kind of like I was flashing for myself. Fortunately no one was on the bomb, I think I would have killed the defuser anyway but no one was on the Spike even."

"I think today's win is just a result of lessons that we've learnt from last year taken into this year and myself and coach mini, moreso coach mini, really trying to implement all of that stuff," Boaster said. "It just means that, if we do swap a player in or when we do have roster swaps, as long as we have three or four core members, swapping a new guy in… It'll take them a couple of weeks to get used to how I call, how mini coaches, and our playstyle, but once they're settled in, there's no problem whatsoever."

Letting go of the defuse key might have cost BBL the game.

Despite a strong 2-0 victory, Boaster wasn't entirely happy with today's result. According to the British IGL, the team lacked discipline and lost many rounds due to lacking it.

"That's kind of the philosophy of this year, trying to improve all of that. It's a long process, because you can't just be like 'everyone, comm better. Everyone, understand the game more. Everyone, make better decisions,'" he said. “That takes time and it's a real grind, that's what we've been focusing on for ages now and it's just a work in progress. We don't know how to get there to a point of total domination in the scene, but we're trying to. We're trying to figure out how to win consistently."

Fnatic's next two matches are against two of the stronger teams in Group B. Next week, they'll play against Acend, and the week after against Guild. Some have called Group B the group of death.

"Is that our group? The group of death? I thought the other group was a bit more death-like," Boaster said. "I'm not too scared of [Acend]. We've pracced them a little bit. Acend are, they're a good team, they're good individuals, but like what happened with Guild, they're not unbeatable, you know? I believe that we can beat anyone in our group. If I didn't believe that, why am I even competing?"

To Boaster, the next two weeks are going to be all about preparation, which he believes is one of his and his coach's strengths.

"I'd say that's all we're going to do versus Acend and Guild. Keep refining things that I want to focus on, the comms, the individual decision making, the general macro of a map, and that's it really. Just play our game, hit our shots and just hope we win rounds. Just another—'ah shit, here we go again.'"

Yes, Fnatic won Ascent by 0.18 seconds.

G2 Esports vs. SuperMassive Blaze (G2 2-0)

The final game came down to a bout between G2 and SuperMassive Blaze, two teams who underwent major overhauls in the off-season but that show up with the same will to win.

"We lost a lot of the things we prepared in the off-season, that was the biggest problem," Žygimantas "nukkye" Chmieliauskas said. "The changes were unexpected too, it was out of control, in a way, so we lost like two months of progress. That's why we were so sloppy against Fnatic, we had to fix all of the mistakes — which we had already done half the job — we had to re-do it again."

G2 and SuperMassive Blaze have played against each other once before, in August. That game resulted in a clean 2-0 sweep for the Turks, but the players that entered the server were different this time.

"I wasn't afraid of them. We went in with full confidence because we prepared, the praccs were going good," nukkye said. "We have a plan now. Like a proper plan, compared to last match. We fixed all the mistakes, so I was fully confident in my team."

SuperMassive Blaze picked Split as the first map, a map they hadn't yet lost with the new roster. G2's recent record is shaky, with two losses in five played, but Split still stood as one of their best maps historically .

As such, SuperMassive Blaze had a firm hold on the first half of the game. G2 barely scraped four rounds together by halftime, but flipped it around on the defensive side to take a 13-9 comeback win.

"They thought they would anti-strat us and we changed a lot," nukkye said. "There was nothing to anti-strat. They had zero info on how to anti-strat us because we played a totally different game. But we trolled a few rounds on offense, we couldn't convert them into wins and that's why the half looked a bit rough. But [defense] was no problem."

The series moved to Haven, where the same trend unfolded. SuperMassive Blaze had a good start to the map and ended the first half on top 7-5, but slipped up in the later stages of the game, allowing G2 to take a series-winning 13-10 result.

All of G2 showed up to the match today, but nukkye himself seemed to be extremely comfortable. The Lithuanian came out of the series with a 1.86 KDA, nearing 300 ACS, and finishing with over 80% KAST and 200 ADR.

"I honestly think we still need time. But it's good to win, because it sets a small pace, a small momentum," nukkye said. "But this win doesn't mean anything either way because it's all about individual skill for us now. People need to show up individually and we're going to win against everybody. That's the only thing that's missing for us."

G2 are now 1-1 in their group, but still have three more challenges to face. Next week, they'll play BBL, but to finish their group stage out on top, they'll need wins against Acend and Guild, two of the toughest-looking squads.

"We have to beat everybody to qualify, we have to beat everyone," nukkye said. "Doesn't matter if we beat them now or later. So I look at it as a learning experience, too. Even if we lose games, we can still learn from them. It's good, in a way, to lose games early in the Stage because, like, a hard loss on LAN or an important match will be a lot more difficult for a team to handle."

"[We're] not scared of anybody," he ended.

Looking Ahead

By this time next week, half of EMEA Challengers will be over. Next week's matches will be extremely important in shaping the playoffs.

EMEA Challengers Group B Week 3's games are: