R6 EUL: BDS to Major, Heroic to Challenger League

The 7th match-day sealed the fates of both Heroic and Team Secret. The former will have to play out an entire season of Challenger League. Secret will get a second chance to keep themselves in EUL during the relegation tournamanent.

BDS may not have got the first place of EUL Stage 3 in the bag, but it’s impossible for them to drop out of the Top 4 now. This means that they’re confirmed for the upcoming Six Major already. Spacestation were the first to book their tickets just a few days ago.

For Secret, yesterday’s game was a massive disappointment. All of the players failed to perform in their 2-7 match versus Rogue, which helped that team climb to 15 points overall and decisively sent Secret down to Relegation. Unlike the North American League, EUL utilizes a format in which the points across all three stages matter. So for instance, even though NaVi are pretty far down in the standings right now, their overall points accumulated from placements in Stage 1 and 2 mean that they don’t have to be nervous about their future within the league.

But this also means that the former TrainHard/unKnights roster won’t have another shot at proving itself. For the Frenchmen, this has been an awful year. First, they lost support from Tempra Esports, after which TrainHard closed doors and left them out in the cold. At the start of Stage 3, the Heroic management decided to take care of them, but it remains to be seen how long the organization will stick around now.

The Superteams’ Chances

Two match-days still remain. So far, Rogue have managed to place high up, but they’ve got their duel with BDS coming up next week. Even though we viewers should be excited for this match, Maurice “AceeZ” Erkelenz and his men will surely be nervous. It’s been a while since they managed to beat the French team – and right now, it doesn’t look like anyone can really achieve that.

So if Rogue remain on 15 points, Empire and Cowana can still kickstart a race for second place. But Empire’s chances aren’t looking that great, either. They’ll have to contend with NaVi and G2 for their points. Cowana have still got Virtus.pro and Heroic ahead of themselves – surely some of the best win conditions of anyone within the Top 4. If G2 still want to proceed to Sweden, they’ll have to win both their matches against Empire and BDS. This is more than just unlikely. Last week’s slump will probably have cost them their Major chances.

Despite their great placement, BDS can’t stop now. Even though they’re confirmed for the November Major, the other teams can still place ahead of them. After completing Stage 2 in fourth place, they have to prove again that they’re on top of the European competition.