The second day of the VCT EMEA Promotion playoffs saw the bottom two VCT teams making their debuts in the second round of the upper bracket.

BIG BIG Inactive stayed alive in the upper bracket by taking down Anonymo Esports Anonymo Esports Inactive belmonte Kacper Mordak xuss Tselmeg Tsolmon Stix Wojciech Chamielec grubinho Grzegorz Ryczko Katu Kacper Twórz 2-0. Later on, FOKUS FOKUS Europe Rank #21 hoody Aaro Peltokangas YaBoiLewis Lewis Hughes Mistic James Orfila al0rante Felix Brandl xuss Tselmeg Tsolmon defeated Papara SuperMassive Papara SuperMassive Europe Rank #32 skylen Asil Yalçın ip0TT Yiğit Karadeniz VenTT Emre Bozkurt Celasun Emir Celasun umu7 Umut Pekdoğan 2-0 to make it an all-German upper final.

BIG vs. Anonymo Mentos (BIG 2-0)

The day kicked off with a match between BIG and Anonymo Mentos. The all-Polish Anonymo squad had come second in their group, and began their promotion bracket run by sending group A winners Rebels Gaming Rebels Gaming Inactive down to the lower bracket after defeating them 2-0 in the first round. To continue their upper bracket run, they had to conquer BIG, who had played some close matches in their EMEA Challengers group but ultimately finished in last place with no series wins to their name.

The first half of BIG's map pick of Bind was a continuous back-and-forth battle, with neither team being able to build up a significant economic advantage. After multiple round wins with scrappy purchases from both teams, BIG eked out a slight 7-5 halftime lead by winning the last round of the half.

On defense, BIG showed their opponent a brand new look as they picked up five unanswered rounds, capitalizing on an unsuccessful force attempt by Anonymo in round 14. This put BIG at match point, as they were now in the lead 12-5. Anonymo were only able to gather two more rounds before BIG shut them down and closed out the map 13-7.

BIG were allowing Twisten to aggressively take space on multiple occasions.

Anonymo were hoping to put up a better attacking half on their own map pick of Breeze, but got the opposite of what they bargained for. BIG picked up the first three rounds, and despite Anonymo winning an eco in round four, the Germans were able to comprehensively shut down their opponent and build a 10-1 lead. A 3K by Maks "kamyk" Rychlewski in round 12 finally got Anonymo another round on the board, which concluded a 10-2 half in favor of BIG.

BIG were not able to replicate the same level of success on their attack; Anonymo won six out of the first seven rounds in the half, decreasing the gap down to 11-8. Heroics from Kasper "Kaspe" Timonen helped BIG to their 12th round, but another two Anonymo rounds put the Polish squad on double digits and only two rounds away from overtime. Nico "Obnoks" Garczarczyk had no intention of going to overtime though, as he took down three opponents with his Headhunter to close out the map 13-10 and grant his team the match victory.

BIG struggled on their attack and needed hero rounds like these to drag themselves over the line.

SuperMassive Blaze vs. FOKUS (FKS 2-0)

The second match of the day saw SuperMassive Blaze taking on FOKUS. SMB were looking for redemption after an unsuccessful VCT performance, only picking up a single map win across the entire group stage. On the other hand, FOKUS were coming into this match with a lot of momentum, having just topped their group and subsequently taken down Surreal Esports Surreal Esports Inactive Rosé Eren Erzan VenTT Emre Bozkurt vittoria macRue Arda Yıldız Crewen Ali Eren Sargin in the first round.

SuperMassive Blaze had to forfeit map one due to one of their players not being available at the match start time. This meant that the series officially kicked off on map two of Haven, with FOKUS holding a 1-0 map advantage.

SMB started on attack and opened the scoring by winning the first two rounds. They lost the bonus but found a win in round four, forcing FOKUS on an eco. Jakob "JUGi" Hansen collected three kills with his Bladestorm on the eco round to keep his team within one at 3-2. Nevertheless, SMB extended their lead to 5-2 by picking up two more wins. In round eight, FOKUS managed to find their footing and won the remaining five rounds in the half, which put them 7-5 in the lead at halftime.

FOKUS kept their streak going with the first two rounds of their attack side until SMB won a crucial bonus round, which kept the scoreline within reach for the Turkish squad at 9-6. Their respite would only be brief though, as FOKUS ran away with the rest of the map, finishing Haven with a 13-6 victory and booking their ticket into the upper final after just 19 rounds of play.

JuGi was the difference maker for FOKUS on Haven with 373 ACS.

Looking ahead

The lower bracket kicks off tomorrow, which will see two teams get eliminated from Stage 2: Challengers contention.

Tomorrow's matches are: