The surprise packages

While a disappointing EU RMR Final ended 1-3 for ENCE, it's fair to say this event has been a massive success.

A second place finish, qualification for the Major and a stretch of bodies like Attila the Hun; ENCE have been killing it. To everyone's surprise.

Snappi's rebirth as a top IGL, along with his rag-tag bunch of players that nobody was too sure on, has turned the butt of the joke into a huge threat. After IEM Fall, it's actually quite hard to argue that they aren't one of the best teams in the region.

It's quite amusing that ENCE will be at the Major led by Snappi, while Aleksib won't be with his pimped out squad. Alas, we digress. Enough of OG.

ENCE bodied both G2 and Astralis in BO3s, showing that they aren't just a BO1 fluke job. Well, unless you subscribe to the theory that a BO3 is just three BO1s. The Astralis game was particularly impressive, as ENCE dropped just 11 rounds in two maps.

It actually, for once, might be easy for ENCE.

Over in NA, Evil Geniuses also qualified. Which you know, because you read the article above this one. And yet, you probably still don't know how to process that.

After a wild tiebreaker that took three games versus each team to even decide - and still required multiple overtimes - they eliminated TeamOne and, indeed, Triumph from the running.

Triumph who could have qualified from that group easily if they had beaten EG the first time around instead of, you know, sleeping on the job. That Triumph.

Instead it was EG who faced off against EXTREMUM, with the winner going to Stockholm and the other leaving with feeling that the last 12 months were a waste of time and money.

Though BnTeT and jkaem continued their excellent form, the Oceanic portion of their roster kind of failed them.

Turns out without jks, The Boys are just that. Boys, against men. EG were neck and neck with the boys going into a deciding half of Inferno, but EG took over and won eight in a row to turn an 8-7 half into a 16-7 shellacking.

Which is, kind of a shame, honestly. EG have been pretty awful of recent, and we're not exactly looking forward to seeing them lose to middle of the pack EU teams.

Look, at least Brehze and stanislaw are back, and maybe we'll see the old Brehze back. That would make it all worth it.