Europe is the second region of contenders to start of and gave us some great games in it's first week. Will the Hurricane bounce back? Will Team Gigantti get back to the finals after their absence last season? Let's hope for another great season of contenders in Europe!
Day 1:
Winstrike Team vs. Young and Beautiful (4-0)
EU Contenders would start of it's season with one of the favorites to take it all, Winstrike Team. Everyone was ready to see what kind of wacky strats they had in store and see if they had adapted well to the meta-shifts. Unfortunately Y&B had to forfeit the match due to internet issues of one of their players and not having a reserve listed. A real shame but as in every competition, rules are rules.
Bazooka Puppiez vs. HSL Esports (0-4)
Beforehand, both teams are not regarded as the strongest in EU and the match showed this in a couple of ways. Lack of variation in compositions and long fights were mistakes would make the difference instead of one team outplaying the other. HSL was in the end the team that made the least mistakes. The Puppiez looked very disorganized in their tank play which is probably why they got rolled on some points by HSL. For the next match I hope that the Puppiez get some synergy going or else I expect their season to not be very successful. This match for me had one standout in particular: ''zYKK'' on his Zarya seemed to have a grav every 30 seconds. Even in lost fights he was always ahead of ''TracK'' on his Zarya which was a real surprise to me since I was not very familiar with ''zYKK'' before. ProGi and Hidan as veterans of HSL were also playing very well and won their head-to-head match-ups convincingly.
Team Gigantti vs. Samsung MorningStars (2-3)
THE biggest match of the first week lead to record-breaking viewership for EU contenders group stage saw a close, back and forth match between two finals candidates. Gigantti and SMS made it a good match from the get go with immediately Ilios going 99/99 on the first 2 points with Gigantti just slightly pulling ahead on Lighthouse. Hollywood was a different story though, SMS and Gigantti capped point A pretty convincingly after which SMS made the difference on the payload part of the map. SMS seemed very ready for payload in general because later on they won Route 66 in an even bigger sweep. It all came down to Nepal and Gigantti looked very ready, taking Sanctum 100/0 but MorningStars bounced back with a 100/0 of their own on Village. Shrine was to be the map to end it all and Gigantti seemed to be the stronger team at the start getting their timer all the way to 99 percent. Samsung MorningStars wanted none of that and struck back by capping the point in overtime and never letting it go. 99/100 and Samsung MorningStars take the series. In the end there was very little to differentiate these two teams and it could have gone either way, looking forward to both their next matches!
Day 2:
British Hurricane vs. We Have Org (3-1)
This match sees the return of the season 1 champions after being relegated to trials in Season 2. WHO was a good opponent for them to start with but still struggled to pick up the victory. Map 1 event went to the non-academy team and it did not look good for the Hurricane. Numbani was a different story though and the Hurricane bounced right back. The remaining maps were very close with BH pulling just ahead of We Have Org but not as convincingly as they would like. ''Nesh'' was a standout for the Hurricane being a good consistent player throughout the whole game. Both teams still looking very shaky and their synergy between the roles on both teams were lacking in a lot of moments. I hope the British Hurricane improve because in this form they will not beat the top dogs in EU contenders.
Angry Titans vs. Orgless & Hungry (3-0)
Season 2 finalists Angry Titans looked to stay angry going into the next season of contenders. O&H's current roster might be their best one yet and they are certainly favorites for playoffs. The game, on the other hand, was not showing the qualities both teams have. AT proved to still be very good with tanks comps and showed that having a mostly unchanged roster helps you out a lot. Synergy is so important in the GOATS meta and Angry Titans was just the better team overall. Horizon Lunar Colony was the only game really close but O&H could not edge out a win. As said before, the AT synergy and experience in tank comps really gave them a clear edge in this match.
One.PoinT vs. Shu's Money Crew EU (4-0)
I learned one thing from this match: the Eagle Gaming boys are good at GOATS, only at GOATS. OPT having half of Eagle on their roster in a heavy GOATS meta was a very smart move as shown in this match. SMC tried mirroring, counters and and variations but they could not make it work. The match was not very close and most maps were quick and easy wins for the OPT team. This raises one question though: if the meta shift, will one point still be a contender? They looked strong but they only played one composition. As we know from trials were most of the OTP roster was playing for Copenhagen Flames, Non-GOATS is not really their thing... Still have to give credit to SMC's ''Trispear'' who looked very good on the Ana in particular.
Match of the week: Team Gigantti vs. Samsung MorningStars
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