Consistency comes in clutch in EMEA

After the last EMEA Monthly Qualifier full of drama, everybody was looking towards the April Qualifier.

EMEA as a region kept growing fast, and this month we got over 10000 potential participants: almost twice as much as last month! However, the limit of the bracket was also increased - from 1024 to 2048 - and the Top 32 teams still got a spot reserved. But this didn't stop the bracket from filling out in a matter of minutes. The Day 1 rounds particularly took a very long time to complete due to the sheer number of teams.

With that being said, let's have a look at the bracket. This month, the bracket was seeded based on the March results, so the chances of the same teams qualifying were pretty big. The Upper Bracket didn't give too many upsets except for a game in the penultimate round - Eclipsar Esport vs Kebap with the latter defeating their opponents, although they lost their next game against Oceanus Gaming. Going into the Lower Bracket, because of a loss to Kebap, Eclipsar Esport faced FUT Esports in the final round, which meant only one of them had a chance to qualify. Unfortunately for FUT, Eclipsar were stronger and eventually qualified for Monthlies. As for Kebap, they were also sent to Lower Bracket, but they brushed away their opposition and qualified for Monthly Finals, sweeping f/a ... in the final round and being the only team out of eight qualified who hadn't played in Monthly Finals ever before.

Here's the list of all 8 qualified teams:

1) SK Gaming | Joker, LeNain, Yoshi, KValafar (M), Pedro (C), OscarDC (A)

Being the current Monthly Champion, it wasn't a surprise that SK qualified through the Upper Bracket. Still looking as strong as ever, they are ready to dominate their region once again.

2) ZETA DIVISION | GeRo, MeOw, Nowy297, Leightox (A)

Even World Champions can have it tough in EMEA Monthly Qualifiers. Although running through Upper Bracket, the Polish were close to getting knocked out to Lower Bracket during their last two games against F/A db and BC* Gaming.

3) HMBLE | BosS, Lukii, Symantec, Canaan (C), Vid (A)

There was no match for HMBLE in their Upper Bracket run before the final round, where they faced Reply Totem, who also joined the list of victims in last month's silver medallist's MQ run.

4) Oceanus Gaming | Angelboy, Cube, Nob?, Nikounaki (M), Sugus (A)

Oceanus Gaming swept their quarter of the bracket again, continuing their streak of going undefeated in qualifiers. But can they repeat the same result on Monthly Finals?

5) BC* Gaming | Mewtu, Salty, Tomzy, Shoto (M), Venm (A)

BC* Gaming's MQ run was similar to last month's - they again lost their last Upper Bracket match (this time to ZETA) before qualifying through the Lower Bracket. Can they defeat the team that knocked them out of the Upper Bracket for the second consecutive month?

6) Eclipsar | GuGu, Mebius, Ope, Mathis (M), titidej59 (A)

Despite losing to Kebap in the penultimate Upper Bracket round and facing FUT in the last Lower Bracket round, ECP still surprised everyone and made it to the Monthly Finals for the second time.

7) Kebap | ardakeskin, Corwas, Marcoh, Yuffy, chloun (M), Yaguex (C)

Nobody expected the Turkish roster to qualify, but they did it anyway, after winning ECP and hitting the biggest upset of this qualifier. Now they are about to face the previous monthly runner-up in HMBLE. Can they pull an even bigger upset this week?

8) Reply Totem | iKaoss, Maru, Maury, Alez (M), Role (C), xCasta (A)

Reply Totem were expected to qualify for the Monthly Finals, and despite losing their Upper Bracket final match to HMBLE, the Italians still made it. And to make things even harder, SK Gaming waits for them in the first round yet again.