Gambit, Virtus.pro, K23 secure final EPIC League CIS playoffs spots

23-5-2021 21:46

The Swiss stage of the CIS Regional Major Ranking (RMR) event has been concluded as two favorites scraped through with 3-2 records.

Gambit and Virtus.pro have avoided early exits from the first CIS RMR event of 2021, taking down Nemiga and ex-Marlian, respectively, on the final day of the group stage to advance to the playoffs. Joining the duo in the second part of EPIC League CIS will be K23, who overcame Denis "⁠seized⁠" Kostin's Trident in a three-map series.

Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov's team got into the sticky situation by suffering 2-0 losses to regional rivals Natus Vincere and Spirit. The world No.1 haven't been up to their expected level at the tournament so far, but victories over Trident, Akuma, and finally Nemiga will see them advance nonetheless.

Gambit can breathe a sigh of relief after advancing to bracket play

Virtus.pro's form has also been worrying as Dzhami "⁠Jame⁠" Ali and co. dropped series to both Entropiq and FORZE, while their victories were far from convincing and came against K23, Trident (default win), and ex-Marlian (16-14, 16-13).

Rounding out the playoffs is K23, whose star Petr "⁠fame⁠" Bolyshev averaged a 1.16 rating across 11 maps, making Trident (#49) the highest-ranked team that didn't advance to the next stage.

Instead, the surprise of the event is Akuma. The all-Ukrainian squad built on the core of the former Project X lineup made it through with a 3-1 scoreline after beating GROND, 1WIN, and K23. The team's AWPer Dmitriy "⁠SENSEi⁠" Shvorak has been a sensation, posting a 1.44 rating in the event which makes him the best performer of EPIC League CIS so far.

The most dominant sides of the group stage were Spirit and FORZE who made it through without a loss, followed by Natus Vincere, Entropiq, and aforementioned Akuma in the 3-1 bracket.

The double-elimination playoff bracket of the tournament has also been drawn, and will kick off with Gambit facing an in-form Entropiq, while Virtus.pro will be tested by FORZE. The initial playoff games are as follows:

Spirit vs. K23
Gambit vs. Entropiq
FORZE vs. Virtus.pro
Natus Vincere vs. Akuma

Epic

2021-05-23 21:47

The playoff matches look one sided.. Spirit 100% gonna win, Gambit 100% gonna win Virtus pro 75% chance of winning, akuma 99.9% of winning

2021-05-23 21:51

Epic23 gonna win tournament

1 reply

Never bro, never((

2021-05-24 08:07

ez for Spirit

2021-05-23 21:48

nvm, very epic

Spirit will win the whole thing imo (I know flair checks out lulw)

The bloodbath continues

2021-05-23 21:49

ez for entropiq

2021-05-23 21:50

10 replies

What about no?

2021-05-23 21:56

9 replies

very compelling point but hear me out, what about yes

2021-05-23 21:57

8 replies

Now GODX1LE is angry and some cheater called El1an will not stop him to be honest nothing will stop him nothing can

2021-05-23 21:58

7 replies

this is lunacy, stop

2021-05-23 22:25

6 replies

Well this lunacy is keep living since March

2021-05-23 22:50

5 replies

Why mad about EIQ being a good team? Oh, wait, flair, now I get it

2021-05-23 23:10

4 replies

Wait a moment where i said Entropiq is bad team i just said El1an is a "cheater" cuz Zeus called him cheater but he is good player It's quite obvious that #1 ranked team is favourite here right?

2021-05-23 23:13

3 replies

Why lunacy then? Because of "EZ4EIQ"? They have a chance, even tho Gambit is a favourite. It's regional derby and the most stacked CIS RMR in years. Nobody is safe

2021-05-23 23:17

2 replies

No, no #20 said lunacy is when i said Godx1le cannot be stopped which is true I wouldn't be that much surprised when Entropiq would beat Gambit cuz i think Gambit is preparing for IEM

2021-05-24 01:33

Gambit has lost multiple finals this year, they are a strong team, we all know they are good, but saying godx1le mad now is like casters saying "oh s1mple got knifed he mad now navi win"

2021-05-24 07:57

K23 had an easy opponents but gj. Gambit-Entropiq strong pair. Very exited with this play-offs

2021-05-23 21:52

EZ4NAVI

2021-05-23 21:55

2021-05-24 00:20

Spirit, Gambit, ForZe and NAVI literally the left side win

entropiq have pretty good chances to upset gambit

2021-05-23 22:06

Yeah it's gonna be really interesting game prolly the best out of these but this is playoffs so Gambit will probably tryhard a little bit more but on other hand they have another big event in one week so yeah it would be really interesting

2021-05-23 22:08

Very Unluko for Nemiga.

why did they not add one of those cool charts?

2021-05-23 22:22

Unluko for seized :(

2021-05-23 22:35

Playoff will be very interesting

2021-05-23 22:52

Ez 4 Dauren 'AdreN' Kystaubayev

2021-05-23 23:07

2021-05-23 23:18

I like K23, I like the old gambit roster, but I'm afraid Spirit is a hard stop for K23 here. Would be very pleasantly surprised if K23 win

2021-05-23 23:08

K23 really need to show their best game yet to stand a chance against Spirit we saw in Swiss Stage

2021-05-23 23:19

Oh right, Spirit went 3-0. Good luck to K23, they will need it if they want to overcome them

2021-05-23 23:30

Gambit didn't look like themselves in this tournament, I didn't see this structure that we once saw from this roster. VP really has to bench SANJI, Idc. if he drops guns for Jame or whatever but he sucks. K23 looked really good and I think they are going to make a lot of damage in the playoffs.

2021-05-23 23:35

2021-05-24 00:21

Sensei vs s1mple. Must watch

2021-05-24 03:46