"Monte and Cloud9 Clear favourites" for Fall Showdown Eastern EU qual
BLAST Fall Showdown is almost upon us, meaning it's qualifier season.
9INE and Movistar Riders have already qualified thanks to their victories at the RES Western European Masters and the RTP Arena Cup, but now it's time to switch our attention to the RES Eastern European Masters.
A tournament including the likes of Cloud9, Monte, and Spirit, once again, we spoke to caster Dweg to get his opinions on who are the biggest favourites and underdogs for the event.
Photo: Stephanie LindgrenFavourites and underdogs
Who are the favourites to qualify for Showdown?
The clear favourites are Monte and Cloud9, and yes, I would put Monte ahead of them.
Monte showed good promise at IEM Cologne, beating Imperial, FURIA & GamerLegion and were even being very competitive vs Heroic and Cloud9. Monte has also placed top four in four online events in the last 3 months, even making it to a Grand-Final recently where they lost to BIG.
Monte proved the most recently in Malta for ESL Pro League. Narrowly losing to BIG and MIBR but beating Rooster, Heroic and then MIBR in a rematch to qualify them to the playoffs.
Cloud9 are the next obvious favourite. We have only seen Cloud9 play 2 events with their new signings of electroNic & Perfecto. In IEM Cologne Cloud9 made the playoffs beating 9INE, Monte and GamerLegion in the Group Stage, however, due to visa issues, buster stood-in for Ax1Le in all group stage games.
The next event was Gamers8, where Cloud9 walked over fnatic but were blown out of the water by ENCE in the Quarter-Finals. The core thre of sh1ro, Ax1Le & H0bbit played in the previous RES Eastern European Masters where they were tested by Bad News Eagles & VOYVODA in the playoffs with three out of the four maps going to 30 rounds or more. They ended up winning the event, and they will look to do the same again.
Who are the biggest underdogs?
It’s got to be Spirit for me. I think they genuinely have a decent chance of taking the spot from Monte or Cloud9. They won CCT North Europe Series 6 at the end of July. Just two weeks after that they placed second in the CCT 2023 Online Finals 2 where they beat Virtus.pro in the UBF but lost to them in the rematch of the Grand-Final.
Most recently they won the PARI Dunav Party 2023 LAN event in Serbia beating FORZE, 1WIN, 9 Pandas & Virtus.pro dropping just two maps in the entire event.
donk & ArtFr0st are playing insanely well, watch out for them.
With the event set to kick off on the 15th, it will confirm one of the last two places in the European Showdown. Will Cloud9 put themselves within touching distance of another appearance at a BLAST event, or can Monte continue their strong year?
You can watch all the action here.
SpiritSpiritEternal Fire
