We are well underway with EU Masters and already we have seen some shocking results. As of right now, teams are battling it out make it to the Main Event and a chance to represent their country this split. However, SK Gaming Prime have already made a statement in their qualification push.
SK Prime defied most peoples expectations by finishing top of the play-ins to automatically qualify for the group stages. The play-ins featured a lot of difficult opponents such as Mad Lions, Misfits Premier and Diabolus to name a few. Nevertheless, their side came out with an impressive 5-1 record to qualify for EU Masters.
Their coach Kanani believes that his side proved a lot of people wrong and he hopes that their showing demonstrates the strength of the German scene.
He says: “Before this tournament started, most professionals considered us as a bad team and it just feels good to prove them wrong and show how strong the German league is,”
“It was expected that we would be one of the top contenders that would qualify for the play-ins and we all believed that we would actually make it. We believe that Germany is currently a top 3 region next to France and Poland.”
Despite his confidence, Kanani knows that his side can still develop and they will surely be correcting their faults leading up to the group stages. Still, he feels that the organisation exceeded their goals by finishing top of the table.
“I am actually surprised that we managed to qualify by getting the first seed considering that Mad Lions and Misfits Premier was expected to put on a show on for us,”
“I felt that we were well prepared against every opponent that we faced. Overall the loss against the Crvena Zvezda Esports did not really matter that much because we kept our confidence that we gained from beating the other teams. Obviously, you are going to observe and draw conclusions from losses more than from wins so we considered it as a wake-up call.”
SK Gaming will be seen as one of the weaker sides going into the main tournament. However, the Algerian has faith in his side’s ability and he thinks that their play-in run will only benefit his team.
“Having to play play-ins is good for us because we as a team feel warmed up and we can expect a similar level from us against other teams during groups,”
“I would like to see us getting out of groups while having a good showing at Leicester.”
It’ll be interesting to see who makes it out of play-ins with SK Prime. The early advantage has already gone to the German side and after watching their games and speaking to their coach, it’s important that nobody underestimates this line-up.
Don’t forget to tune into the conclusion of the play-ins live tonight at 5pm on Twitch!
By Tom Daniels
Gromp News 