BNE, Spirit, and B8 to 2-1 pool after third round victories in Malta

Bad News Eagles, Spirit, and B8 all claimed their second victories at the Europe Regional Major Ranking tournament to kick off the third round of matches. The Kosovar squad delivered a near-flawless performance and barely broke a sweat in their 16-3 thrashing of Astralis, B8 were in the drivers’ seat all throughout their game against fnatic and took home the 16-9 victory, while Spirit edged out GamerLegion 22-20 in a double-OT thriller.

Astralis, GamerLegion, and fnatic are now in the 1-2 pool and will be fighting for their RMR lives. While the stakes may be high for all three teams, Lukas “⁠gla1ve⁠” Rossander‘s side are now under the threat of missing out on the top-24 stage of a Major for the first time in the organization’s history.

If Astralis fail to reach IEM Rio, Andreas “⁠Xyp9x⁠” Højsleth will also lose his record of placing in the top-24 stage of a CS:GO Major for the first time since the game’s release.

Bad News Eagles dominated their third round matchup as the Kosovar squad took home a 16-3 win over Astralis. gla1ve‘s side were bested at every corner as the attackers and lost 11 consecutive rounds before finally scoring their first in the 12th.

The Danes entered halftime down 2-13 and picked up the second pistol, but their efforts just delayed the inevitable as Bad News Eagles put the game to bed in the next three rounds. Dionis “⁠sinnopsyy⁠” Budeci finished with a 28-7 K-D and 2.36 rating, with 26 of his kills coming in the first half of the game. Asger “⁠Farlig⁠” Jensen, meanwhile, had a miserable time on the server and ended with four kills and a dismal 0.16 rating.

The first few rounds of the game went back-and-forth between both sides as Spirit held a narrow 4-2 advantage after six. From then on, GamerLegion asserted their dominance on the T side as they won nine unanswered rounds en route to an 11-4 lead at the break.

The tables completely turned after swapping sides, this time around it was Spirit who looked unstoppable as the attackers. The Russians won seven of the first nine rounds of the half before GamerLegion scored back-to-back to clinch map point. Kamil “⁠siuhy⁠” Szkaradek‘s team had several chances to close out the map, most notably in round 30 with an advantageous 3vs1 retake, but Spirit stood their ground and won the last four to force extra time.

Spirit finally sealed the comeback victory 22-20 after two tightly-contested sets of overtime. Frederik “⁠acoR⁠” Gyldstrand and Pavel “⁠s1ren⁠” Ogloblin were undeniably their teams’ best fraggers throughout the game as the pair dropped 44 and 40 kills, respectively.

B8 came out the gates swinging and streaked to an 8-2 lead over fnatic on Ancient. The European mix struggled to defend the bomb site all half, but eventually picked up the pace and claimed four of the last five rounds before the switch.

The Ukrainian squad continued their excellent form and won five straight coming out of halftime. William “⁠mezii⁠” Merriman‘s men fought back and scored the next three to increase their tally to nine, but B8‘s lead was too much to overcome in the end. Nikita “⁠Hkta⁠” Reva‘s crew closed out Ancient 16-9 and are now one victory away from qualifying for IEM Rio.