Flashpoint S2: Who Can Make Playoffs?

Yesterday, the Opening Matches of all groups were concluded, after which the Upper Bracket Finals and Lower Bracket pairings were released. Which squads have a shot at making playoffs?

GROUP A

Fnatic had much more trouble dispatching c0ntact Gaming than they had probably anticipated. They managed to post a solid win on Mirage. But on Train, Marco “Snappi” Pfeiffer and his men struck on a 16-9 scoreline, fueled by the heroics of Otto “ottoNd” Sihvo. Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson eventually helped fnatic achieve match victory on Overpass. With a 1.71 rating, he was the strongest player on the server.

Just recently, Dignitas had brought in some fresh talent in the form of Haris “H4RR3” Hadzic and Ludvig “HEAP” Alongso. But during their debut match, they failed to impress and were steamrolled by MAD Lions. Rasmus “sjuush” Beck, Ismail “refrezh” Ali, and Frederik “acoR” Gyldstrand had the most fun during this encounter. After a 16-6 on Overpass and a 16-10 on Nuke, they soon held the win in their hands.

So fnatic and MAD Lions will clash for the first playoffs spot. This match-up is actually a reprise of IEM Beijing EU. In the Lower Bracket of Group A, the Danes shocked fnatic with a solid and one-sided victory. Now that fnatic have struggled so much versus c0ntact, it looks as though the Lions could legitimately pull this upset off again.

GROUP B

The second group consisted of a lot of NA teams. MIBR and Envy had made their way onto European soil in order to compete with the Europeans, which they unfortunately failed to do.

Envy went up against forZe and managed to sweep them on Dust2 for a 16-2 win. The 2.00 rating of Buğra ‘Calyx’ Arkın gave the impression that they could soon seal the deal and be the most successful North American team in Europe ever since the start of the pandemic. Two maps later, however, they were beaten down to the Lower Bracket and forZe survived with a major scare.

MIBR have only been assembled about two weeks ago. After the old core of the team had dissolved, the organization had loaned out several Brazilian players and brought them to Europe to help them out. This has worked out surprisingly well. During BLAST Premier: Fall Series Group C, they actually managed to take a map off of Astralis and even eliminated FURIA.

However, this didn’t really help them against BIG, who had the match under control. The 2-1 score gives the impression that MIBR were competitive, but apart from a narrow 16-14 win on Vertigo they recorded two 2-16 losses.

So BIG and forZe will clash for the playoffs spot. The Russian team will barely get a chance to shine against the likes of Florian “syrsoN” Rische on the German camp.

GROUP C

Finally, we got to see Cloud9 debut their new roster. Unfortunately, the Opening Match didn’t quite go as Henry “HenryG” Greer had intended. On Inferno, Cloud9 barely got 5 rounds together, before Virtus.pro sealed the deal. Alex “ALEX” McMeekin tried his best, but the rest of his squad wasn’t feeling it. This changed on the second map.

On Overpass, Cloud9 still only got a 5-10 half for their efforts, but they put up a solid CT side defense and started working off their deficit. William “mezii” Merriman almost cracked the 30 bomb, but it wasn’t enough in the end. Just shy of the finish line, they gave away a 14-16 map and lost their debut match.

The second encounter of the Group had more surprises in store. Not only had Gen.G just arrived from the US, they also had to make use of two stand-ins. Richard “Xizt” Landström and Rasmus “kreaz” Johansson filled up the two vacant spots on the roster and did surprisingly well. Xizt led the team to victory, but the star of the occasion was Kenneth “koosta” Suen. The North American AWPer pulled off a 1.66 rating for both maps, which went to Gen.G on 16-5 and 16-10 scorelines. OG just didn’t have a response to their gameplay, giving away one of the shortest matches of this Flashpoint season.

But Virtus.pro are much more stable and have played on a consistent level for months now. It will be much more difficult to achieve an upset victory here. So the Russians will likely make their way to the playoffs, whereas Gen.G will have to hope that they can deliver a similarly great performance in the fight for second place.

Flashpoint Season 2 will resume today already. First of all, we will see the Upper Bracket Final play out between BIG and forZe, after which Envy and MIBR will try to fend off elimination. One American team will have to go home today.