EU Challenger Play-In Preview and Recap

While the LCS has a week before the beginning of the Summer Split, the European Challenger Series takes center stage for the week. The first round of the Play-In featuring all 20 qualifying teams took place offline on Thursday, May 15. The 10 winning teams move on a best-of-one series to complete the Play-In phase. That phase will be broadcast live on lolesports.com starting at 9AM PDT / 18:00 CEST. The results from the round-of-20 Play-In are:

• Heavybotlane over Adversa Esports. Man of the match was mid laner Istari with a 3/1/4 KDA Twisted Fate.
• Kappa Team beat eSuba.Intel. Man of the match was AD carry h0rseeee with an 8/1/8 KDA on Corki.
• Gamers2 downed Balkan Bears. Man of the match was AD carry Yuuki60 with a 7/0/7 KDA on Graves.
• Lublin Shore defeated Tricked eSport. Man of the match was AD carry Makler with a 10/2/8 KDA on Twitch.
• noMERCY defeated Tick Trick and Duck. Man of the match was AD carry Coortesan with a 4/1/6 KDA on Lucian.
• Shantao macht Wau got by Megabulbajebutronozordy. Man of the match was AD carry Shantao who recorded a 10/2/5 KDA on Jinx.
• GG Call Nash beat Team Profile. Man of the match was top laner GoB who had a 9/1/11 KDA on Shyvana.
• Zyzz is Alive beat Team PolskiLol. Man of the match was mid laner watdefox who impressed with a 12/0/6 KDA on Nidalee.
• Unicorns of Love beat Kevlar z Limonki. Man of the match was mid laner PowerOfEvil with a 4/0/8 KDA on Syndra.
• Tricked advanced to the round-of-ten by virtue of a forfeit win over Invaders.

The match-ups tomorrow will be (in order):

• noMercy vs. Shantao macht Wau
• Gamers2 vs. Heavybotlane
• Lublin Shore vs. GG Call Nash
• Tricked versus vs. is Alive
• Unicorns of Love vs. Kappa Team

If there is a storyline to be gleaned from the first round, it is the near universal strength of AD carries. The winning team's AD carry had a solid game even if they weren't the Man of the Match. Should that trend continue during the round-of-ten, it promises to turn bottom lanes into battlegrounds with plenty of kills, and jungle interaction throughout the round. The action kicks off at 9AM PDT / 18:00 CEST on lolesports.com with noMercy taking on Shantao macht Wau with a spot in the bracket stage of Summer European Challenger 1 at stake.