R6 EUL Stage 3: BDS, Rogue Cowana at the Top After Day 2

After two EUL match-days, the ranking order has changed immensely when compared to Stage 2. Rogue have secured a high placement following two victories, Vitality are in last place. BDS Esport are the clear winners of the first week of play.

The first day started off with a bang – Rogue managed to surpass Virtus.pro in overtime! Lukas “korey” Zwingmann’s departure may have hurt them at the GSA Finals, but since then, they have stabilized again. Last year, Kevin “Prano” Pranowitz was the frontrunner and only glimmer of hope for the Secret roster. His performance for Rogue hits just right and we can expect the team to perform even better in the future. Could this finally be the right team composition for Rogue?

BDS ARE DOMINATING AGAIN

The French team has been consistently good, but they’re starting to improve on their Stage 2 performance again. Just like Empire, they don’t need any roster changes and just need to fix smaller issues. Their initial results in EUL Stage 3 look promising, seeing as Vitality and Virtus.pro didn’t stand a chance against them. On both maps, Stéphane “Shaiiko” Lebleu was the clear the MVP. After two days, he has made his way to the top of the player leaderboard with an astonishing 1.63 rating. He hasn’t been this dominant since 2020!

So this is a great sign for the future of BDS. They only missed out on the Major Grand Finals by the skin of their teeth, so we shouldn’t act surprised if they manage to pull ahead of Empire in this European League stage again. But NaVi and G2 should also perform better online than they did in Mexico.

COWANA IN THIRD PLACE

The Brits didn’t have a great time in Stage 2. This was due to internal and personal fractures between the team and Luke “Kendrew” Kendrew. But now, the IGL is gone, having relative success under the Secret banner, and a new youngster can freshen up the Cowana lineup. So far, this roster has done great. An overtime victory against Empire on the first day was quite impressive, but not as stunning as their comeback-driven 8-7 finish over Natus Vincere. This victory announces them as a top contender for the remainder of the season. Unfortunately, these tight scorelines mean that they’ve only got four instead of six points to their name. Still, they’re in third place now. Next week, they’re going up against G2 Esports – trying to get the most difficult teams out of the way first.

BENJAMASTER IS THE NEWEST TOP ROOKIE

They’ve talked about this on-stream already. Jake “Sloth” Brown would love to see his colleague Benjamin “Benjamaster” Dereli get the Rookie of the Year award. Ghassan “MiloshTheMedic” Finge, however, pointed out that Stage 3 might be a little too late for this. He’s right, since the young Dane hadn’t been competing for the first eight months. Nonetheless, Benjamaster’s performance within EUL is remarkable. On the first day, he managed to ramp up 19 kills and a 1.41 rating versus Empire. To put that into perspective, less than a month ago, Empire were in the Grand Finals of the Mexico Major, and Benjamaster hadn’t even played his first professional match on this level!

Some teams like G2 and Empire have placed in the middle of the EUL leaderboard. But so far, only two match-days have passed. So G2’s loss on the first day doesn’t have to mean anything. They’ve got one strong opponent out of the way in the form of NaVi. So now, they will “only” have to contend with the likes of BDS and Empire for the rest of EUL Stage 3.