The finals of Spring Season of the Black Monster Cup are coming to a close this weekend. Over 300 teams took part, and now the best teams as decided by the regional qualifiers will face off for the prize pot of €14,000 this Saturday and Sunday.
While the Spring Finals still have some well-known names in their lineup, there were also a good amount of upsets, with some former LCS players trying their best but falling to relative rookies regardless. Will we see an underdog make it big this weekend?
Starting at 15:00 CET on Saturday, 16 teams from all over Europe will play a single elimination bracket to claim their share of the prize pot and the glory. With competitors including Cloud 9 Eclipse, n!faculty, Departed, Counter Counter Clockwise, Steve Bakes Cookies and Tick Trick and Duck, we will be seeing teams who have competed in the EU Challenger Series going for the trophy. On the paper, Departed should have the best chance of putting on a good show as they’re playing in the top eight finals against NiP on Friday and pulled off some excellent plays during their Challenger Series matches.
More VoDs can be found on BlackMonsterCup.com
Some other, bigger names also tried - and failed - to qualify. ocelote's new team Gamers 2 didn't survive the Spanish qualifier, having been kicked out by Steve Bakes Cookies in the semifinals. mousesports, formerly MYM, were not able to defeat komornicy in the Polish semifinals, and so had to give up on their Spring Season dream. Last but not least, SK Gaming Prime played two qualifiers only to end up being eliminated by n!faculty in the German semis and Free Agents in the Benelux Grand Final. Additionally, well-known players hyrqBot and ShLaYa also made it to the finals as part of TEAM HD but were unfortunately unable to compete due to not being able come up with a full lineup for the tournament.
In addition to the erstwhile EU Challenger Series competitors, the fray will also be joined by some interesting Eastern European teams. Russia's RoX.KIS placed second in the ESL Pro Series CIS, and will be facing western teams for the first team as part of their Black Monster Cup challenge. Another tough opponent is Turkish powerhouse Dark Passage, who will be all too eager to show the EU Challenger Series teams what their region's talent is made of.
Saturday is the day we'll find out which teams prepared best for the Black Monster Cup.
In a clash of play styles and team compositions, it's difficult to say whether the favorites with live up to fan expectations. One thing, however, remains certain: The bracket - and especially the single elimination matches - will be one hell of a show!
