A New Champion Is Born: EU Apollo Open Day 3 Recap

Unbelievable! Team Queso has, almost overnight, transformed themselves from a tier 2 team, barely in contention for the major, to dominating the first event of winter. What a day of action, and this definitely puts things into a spin.

Upper Finals:

BDS VS Queso turned out to be a huge mismatch, but not in the way we all expected. Still struggling with the effects of Covid, the best player in the world, Monkey Moon, failed to even put a single goal on the scoreboard, as Vatira’s incredible efforts not only in offense, but also back as the last line of defense, helped lead Queso to an astonishing 4-0 sweep of the major champions, completely shocking the world.

Lower Semis:

The lower semis saw a marquee matchup between the fall split’s #1 and 2 seeds out of EU, Dignitas and Endpoint. After falling in game 1, Dignitas quickly put Endpoint on the back foot, and despite some goal line, last ditch efforts from young prodigy Seiko, ApprentlyJack’s precise shooting, including the sealer in game 6, paired with ScrubKilla’s perfect passing, helped lead Dignitas to a strong 4-2 victory over up and coming rivals Endpoint, who still looked very solid throughout the event, with numerous good victories before falling to only BDS and Dignitas.

Lower Finals:

The reigning major champions were made to look like fools for the second time today. After losing 0-4 at the hands of Queso, Dignitas’ aggressive, physical play style against BDS, which included an average of 6.5 demos per game, led Dignitas to not just a sweep, but a perfect sweep, of major champions BDS. With the pure, all round team dominance produced by ApparentlyJack, Joreuz and ScrubKilla meant that BDS managed to break another record, but this time, unfortunately the one for first ever BO7 perfect sweep in major region RLCS history.

Grand Finals:

Europe has a new champion, and perhaps, a new team to chase. Certainly no one could have anticipated this pure dominance from Queso, especially after Dignitas looked so strong throughout the day. From the beginning, young phenom Vatira looked to make an early statement, with a clean game 1 hat trick opening up a 1-0 lead. Heading into game 2, Queso exhibited why they can be so strong and dynamic, handing over the offensive reigns to Joyo to not only best Dignitas, but take them down 4-0 in game 2, opening up a big 2-0 lead that threatened to quickly put Dignitas away. Although Dignitas fought back incredibly hard in game 3, with a Joreuz quick 50 sealing the long over time victory, they couldn’t stop the flood gates in the final two games, as Joyo and Vatira continued to pile on the goals, as Rise played as the perfect third man, to secure a dominant 4-1 performance, locking in 1st place which should already have them in good shape for the major.