Speed|Up didn't stand a chance against minipeace, indeed the international team won very easily 7/0 7/1 5/2. Same thing for TNT against Replica: 7/0 7/0 5/0, and because of missing players from TNT, they even played 5vs4...

Black.Out forfeited, the only match left was 711 vs UMF, the decider match for the first place. Unfortunately UMF missed a lot of key players on monday and 711 couldn't move the date, so the brasilian team won the match pretty easily: 7/1 7/6 5/0.

Two teams forfeited in this group! New World Team and DRK are out, nGt Gaming and Mistral.Tt are sure to go in play-offs, they just had to play their match ot determine who is going to be first. Apparently, they didn't train really seriously, thanks to the lack of challenge, and it's the french team who managed to win this match: 7/3 5/7 5/3.

The favourites of this group didn't fail to show who's da boss, RtA won 7/0 7/4 5/1 against SAW, and dacSP 7/2 7/1 5/2 against iF. Nice and clean.

 

The russians didn't encounter any real difficulty to beat FOXskill, 7/3 7/1 5/3, but the french team Insight was very close to make the first surprise of this STC! Maybe Lions was untrained or Insight really trained, or both, but the victory slipped just out of their hands, zo0m's teammates lost only 5/2 7/6 7/6 against the first seed of their group.

Infinity-delta forfeited, letting the first place wide open to Saphire. For their first match, the french secured the first place, winning 7/2 7/0 5/0 against the polish team Ec', which will make a lot of people reconsider the potential strenght of Ec'.

RG-eSports was speaking from its rage, giving only one round to mD: 7/0 7/1 5/0. In the other match, Clan Demon didn't have enough players to play the match.

First surprise of the tournament, 3DMAX was beaten by the german team eXclamation! (I can't add another exclamation at the end of the sentence, it will be too much). They won all the maps: 7/2 7/4 5/2 and didn't seem to have been put in danger by the great favourite of the group.
In the other match, SL managed to secure the win: 7/1 5/3 7/5.

[GL] didn't give eVolutions any hope of winning, 7/0 7/0 5/0. After this tough defeat, the czech team decided to get out of the tournament "we dont play others match, we are not so good :)" . eQ and YDK| were still trying to find a date for the match after some misunderstandings, but finally it's a defwin for YDK|...

Easy win for mythiX 7/0 7/0 5/1 and for WIRC 7/1 7/0 5/0. vms retired at 5-0 in the 2nd map against WIRC, not very fair-play of them...

I don't want to say that, but another forfeit, from hybriD. In the only match of this group, the polish team tr. was able to take one map to gOd: 7/4 6/7 5/0 ! But it will probably not be enough for them to qualify for the play-offs.

Guess what? Yep, forfeit again, from Eyes on U. The B-team of dacSP fought very well against pro., winning 3/0: 5/2 7/4 7/5.

The first match was an easy victory from the finnish team DFF against the french DDp: 5/3 7/2 7/1. It was even easier for wX against deMentes 7/3 7/0 5/3.

Only 3 teams and a forfeit from Orange. The only match of the group is going to take place in round 3, mostly for fun.

adv-FX vs IR: was a one-way match, 5/0 7/0 7/1 for the portuguese team.

Like in group 14, Black Angel Team forfeited. The match left will be played during the 3d round.

61 teams after the drawing, only 52 teams left after the first round. A lot of forfeit here, really bad for the show...But don't be sad, only the unmotivated teams left, with the other teams staying in the tournament the show will only be much exciting!

Just to begin nicely the competition, Belarus and GB forfeited... Germany vs Brasil was probably the most interesting match of this group, out of all rounds, because they are now the two candidates for the 2nd place. Germany did really well by winning 2/1 (almost 3/0): 7/2 6/7 5/1, and is 99% sure to finish 2nd and meet a "3d" team in relegations.

It seems like the final ranking of this group is already done, if everything goes as expected.

PL vs UA: We didn't expect Ukrainia to win this match, but to show a bit of a resistance with players like Grand. However, they had great difficulties to gather enough players for the default time and left after losing 7/0 the first map... 7/0 7/0 5/0.
SVK vs FI: Slovakia was slightly favourite with the duo tween/HakkiJr, even if Finland has a very homogeneous team. The slovakians managed eventually to win this match 5/4 2/7 7/3, with a very close first map which could have completely changed the match.
CZE vs AUT: The best team, with Poland, of the group against one of the weakest, no alternative appeared except a czech victory. They won 3/0 indeed, but Austria showed really good things, almost winning the first map (6/7) and fighting well in the second one (4/7). Unfortunately, they chose not to play the multilap map. 7/6 7/4 5/0.

In this really open group, Finland which was hoping for a 3d place, doesn't look like being able to go in relegations after its defeat against Slovakia. We are waiting for CZE vs POL, in round 3, to see which one will finish first.

NED vs LT: Not much to say, easy win for Netherlands 7/3 7/2 5/0.
NOR vs ESP: Since Norway has one of the "weakest" team of its history, Spain was determined to take the opportunity of gaining 2 or 3 points. Nevertheless the Nordic players are not so weak after all, and they secured the victory 7/2 6/7 5/0, letting one point go into the spanish hands.
ITA vs PT: Both teams used all their heavy weapons, CiaP, Edo, Beppo, Remix and Extreme for Italy, wh1sper, rewind, Mandioka, kuduro and Flash'z for Portugal. But Italy was much stronger and consistent in this match and thus won 7/1 5/3 1/7, putting itself in a good position to get the place after Netherlands!

An undecided group for the 2nd and 3d place, it's very difficult to say now what will be the ranking in the end, Italy, Spain, Norway and Portugal have the capacities to go in relegations.

RUS vs TUR: Very few people would have bet for KinGod and his teammates, however they must have really scared the russians by taking the first map 7/6 and losing only 7/5 in the second one. Final score: 6/7 7/5 5/1 for Russia which took an option on the 2nd place of the group.
SWE vs EE: One-way match, as we expected, 7/0 7/1 7/0.
HUN vs CAN: Carried by CarlJr, the canadian team should have to be really trained to hope beating Hungary (Salvatore, Huby, Peti, Clown). No miracle happened, it was not a very tough defeat but still 7/2 7/3 5/2 for Hungary.

Here, Hungary and Russia are going to fight for the second place, even if Turkey can rock the boat and grab the 3d place.


With the new rules in the Nations Cup, where only the first is qualified for play-offs in quarter-final and the 2nd and 3d have to go through a relegation round, the struggle for the 2nd and 3d places have reached a very high level. All points are important and will be decisive for the final ranking. Be prepared, only the best trained and motivated will have their place!