Europe Minor Open Qualifier 1 - StarLadder Major 2019Sprout, NoChance qualify for Europe Minor Closed Qualifier
The first two teams to qualify for the Europe Minor Closed Qualifier have been found as NoChance took down PACT 2-0 and Sprout bounced back in the series against Epsilon to take it 2-1.
During the second day of the Europe Minor Open Qualifier 1, NoChance took down finkatt and Virtus.pro to make it to the semi-finals, where they took on PACT. The Polish side is currently ranked 89th in the world in sixth in Poland, but overcame FATE and AGO to reach the BO3 match.
The series started on Dust2, NoChance's map pick, with the European mixture earning eight rounds on the CT side after a back-and-forth half. They then managed to take the lead and reach 14-10 thanks to an inspired Mikail "Maikelele" Bill, but struggled to close out the map, eventually doing so with a 16-14 scoreline.
Nuke followed and was a more straight-forward game. PACT was down 5-0 on the CT side to start it off, but mustered six rounds before the switch, with a hope of a comeback still alive. However, Martin "STYKO" Styk and Thomas "Thomas" Utting combined for all five frags in the pistol and started a streak of seven rounds going their way that saw NoChance defeat PACT 16-6 and qualify for the Closed Qualifier.
  PACT |
K - D | +/- | ADR | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 41 - 35 | +6 | 89.8 | 1.26 | |
| 34 - 39 | -5 | 82.2 | 0.89 | |
| 27 - 35 | -8 | 56.7 | 0.85 | |
| 33 - 42 | -9 | 63.9 | 0.81 | |
| 26 - 35 | -9 | 58.9 | 0.80 |
 NoChance |
K - D | +/- | ADR | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 43 - 31 | +12 | 90.4 | 1.37 | |
| 40 - 34 | +6 | 99.0 | 1.34 | |
| 41 - 28 | +13 | 73.9 | 1.20 | |
| 39 - 34 | +5 | 68.5 | 1.03 | |
| 22 - 34 | -12 | 51.2 | 0.79 |
On the other side of the bracket, Sprout managed two 16-14 wins, against GameAgents and Chaos, to reach the semi-final, while Epsilon took down Ambush and Denzaaaa in a more convincing fashoin, 16-8 and 16-10, respectively.
The two top40 teams started the series on Nuke, where Sprout picked up the first three rounds but was having a tough time breaching Epsilon's defenses against the full buys. After being 10-5 down, the German side managed to pull the score back to 14-14, but eventually lost 16-14 as Kia "Surreal" Man's 4K opened up things for the European mixture.
On Overpass, Sprout had an even better start, 5-2 as Terrorists, but again allowed their opponents to bring the score back with rifles, finishing the half 10-5 down. This time, however, they were impeccable on the defensive side, forcing the decider by winning 16-12.
Train was left to determine the winner and Sprout were not messing around. Nils "k1to" Gruhne led the fragging against his former team as the Germans picked up round after round, not giving their opponents a chance. After a 15-0 first half, Timo "Spiidi" Richter clutched a 1v2 for a perfect map score, pushing Sprout into the Closed Qualifier.
 Epsilon |
K - D | +/- | ADR | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 53 - 58 | -5 | 78.7 | 1.01 | |
| 42 - 58 | -16 | 63.5 | 0.83 | |
| 40 - 55 | -15 | 60.5 | 0.80 | |
| 41 - 57 | -16 | 54.7 | 0.75 | |
| 37 - 59 | -22 | 60.4 | 0.70 |
 Sprout |
K - D | +/- | ADR | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 63 - 42 | +21 | 83.3 | 1.31 | |
| 58 - 51 | +7 | 86.8 | 1.30 | |
| 61 - 45 | +16 | 84.5 | 1.23 | |
| 56 - 38 | +18 | 80.0 | 1.21 | |
| 48 - 37 | +11 | 72.8 | 1.15 |
The Europe Minor Close Qualifier currently looks as follows:
Ismailcan 'XANTARES' Dörtkardeş
Timo 'Spiidi' Richter
Mikail 'Maikelele' Bill
Thomas 'Thomas' Utting
Eimantas 'pounh' Lazickas
Robin 'ropz' Kool
Nemanja 'huNter-' Kovač
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