​ I went through and previewed all of the teams in the Challengers Stage ( which can be found here ) and with that phase of the tournament now in the books it's time to update my observations for the teams that made it through. ​I've already gone through NRG, Renegades, ENCE and Vitality here.





AVANGAR





AVANGAR came through the challengers stage 3-1​ and for the most part simply out-duelled their opposition as a route to victory. Jame had some very strong showings on the AWP and buster delivered on his potential. Qikert lagged behind a little which is a chink in their armour, but the real suprise was just how much fitch stepped up. The former Gambit player topped the opening kills per round leaderboard for the Challengers Stage and was a key part of their T-sided success.





The method in which he did so gives me pause though; a lot of those opening duels came about from dry pushing choke points and out-aiming an opposing CT. The sustainability of this as a tactic against the stronger teams is unlikely, and as such unless they can retool their entry strategy over the break I think they're going to struggle.





Legends Stage Prediction: 1-3​





NiP





I was disappointed in NiP, they made it through but they look less cohesive as a team than they did pre-player break. f0rest and REZ both had strong performances, but dennis still seems lost in this team which in my initial preview for them I mentioned as something that'll need to be solved if this team can go far.





Lekr0 has also had a very patchy display so far in Katowice.​ He showed up big time against FURIA, the second map of the Vega series and the final map of the ViCi series, but in every other encounter he's looked very poor. I think this is going to result in them not being able to consistently put enough kills on the board to make it to top eight.

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Legends Stage Prediction: 2-3





Cloud9

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I preached caution on the Cloud9 hype train in my preview for them and it pretty much came to pass; getting smashed twice by ViCi and TyLoo was enough to do that. The team looks very fragile and when things start going against them they don't appear to have the tactical depth to turn things around, perhaps indicative of missing Golden and/or a coach.





While they made it through in the end it was off the back of superior firepower and scrimmy tactics. I don't think that's going to be enough at this stage; Zellsis isn't good enough for this level and will just end up being too much of an anchor to drag in such a loose system.





Another problem is the lack of a clear strength in their map pool. It's pretty broad, they seem to have a decent understanding of how to play five or six maps, but when the best of threes roll around their lack of a strong go-to pick will hurt them.





One positive to take was that RUSH started to look good here, something you haven't really been able to say since Cloud9 won the Major 13 months ago. Adding him to kio, autimatic and flusha means they're a team that's dangerous to anybody, but not consistent enough to pick up the three wins required.





Legends Stage Prediction: 1-3





G2

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G2 looked absolute garbage through the early rounds of the Challengers Stage, but seemed to turn it around towards the end. KennyS and shox were delivering, and Lucky and bodyy took turns to step up alongside them to push them over the line. It would seem there are positives to take.





I'm not so sure though, they only began to step up against opponents playing poorly and I'm feeling a dumpstering coming for them when they play against a more structured team. A lot of their success in their two best-of-threes came from very aggressive shox CT pushes/flanks. Relying so heavily on that feels like a recipe for getting anti-stratted.





If they can keep up and continue their improvement then they could get some results, but I think it's just as likely that G2 regress back and get sent down to the Minor system.





Legends Stage Prediction: 0-3

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(Image credit: ESL)

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