With mousesports, Natus Vincere, and Team Secret all fighting to get away from relegation in the European division of the R6 Pro League, matchday 14 had the highest stakes of any single day this season.
A cluster of underpeforming teams sat at the bottom of the EU standings entering the final day of play, but matchday 14 showed fans which bad team was not quite as bad as the others.
To say Team Secret desperately needed a win against CHAOS would dramatically understate Secret’s predicament. The bottom-ranked Secret needed a win to avoid auto-relegation, but they also needed Na’Vi to trip up in their matchup against G2.
Luckily for Secret, it seemed that CHAOS played like they had nothing to lose in this matchup since their placing was essentially locked in no matter the result. And unlike many of the previous matches this season, Secret found themselves in firm control of the match, even reaching match point at 6-2.
A string of unforgivable mistakes by Secret allowed CHAOS to surge back into the match, though. The underdog team gave away several defensive rounds to CHAOS essentially for free, leading to the lead dwindling to just one round. Fortunately for Secret, CHAOS’ false sense of security after clearing top floor roamers cost them the 12th round, and gave Secret a 7-5 victory, their fourth win of the season.
With their part done, Secret presumably watched Na’Vi’s match in the hopes they would fail.
G2 isn’t a top team this season, but with two past season titles under their proverbial belts, beating them was still a tall order for Na’Vi. Fans had already seen G2 spoil CHAOS’ chances of going to Milan, so the odds heading into the match certainly weren’t great for Na’Vi.
To Na’Vi’s credit, the team hung with G2 in the first half, forcing a 3-3 tie as the teams switched sides. Granted, the only reason for the tie was a massive mistake by G2 in not guarding their planted defuser. Additionally, G2’s Fabian HÓ“llsten didn’t appear to be taking the game too seriously, picking odd operators for nine rounds, which gave Na’Vi some needed kills.
At 5-5, Fabian finally decided to play the match seriously—a soul-crushing blow for Na’Vi and its fans. G2 advanced to a 6-5 match point, which effectively ensured the match would at best end in a draw for Na’Vi. Unfortunately, Na’Vi needed a win—not a draw—to avoid auto-relegation.
Nonetheless, Na’Vi won the 12th round to force a draw, ending the season at 3-2-9. Now, Na’Vi will have to claw their way back into the Pro League from Challenger League.
Given that Na’Vi lost to G2, mousesports was fighting for nothing in their matchup against Team Empire. At most, mouz would play to try to shut down Empire just for bragging rights, but that’s obviously a big of a sixth-ranked team.
In a rather unsurprising result, Empire walked away with the win in 10 rounds. Fans saw a similar low-stakes match earlier in the day with LeStream Esport going against PENTA Sports. And while LeStream won in 11 rounds, the teams engaged in a full-team knife battle as a farewell to the regular season.
Empire and LeStream will now look forward to the Season Nine Finals, which will take place May 18 and 19 in Milan.
Published: Apr 26, 2019 05:42 pm