ALGS Regional Final: Fire Beavers win, Aurora take title

The Fire Beavers won the EMEA ALGS Regional Final. They needed just one 'match point' eligible game. Aurora raced to match point, dropping 48 points in just two games, but could not close out the victory.

Aurora's second place in the ALGS Regional Final helped them pip Acend to the Pro League title.

Elsewhere, VZN have secured their place in the ALGS Playoffs with a solid showing in the ALGS Regional Final. They will be the only unsigned team heading to the Playoffs.

The ALGS Regional Final followed the match point format, with the map swapping between Worlds Edge and Storm Point every two games.

On the day, it was Fire Beavers who won the ALGS Regional final. They took victory in the seventh game. This was a very impressive victory, as they had only reached the 50 point threshold of in the previous game.

Their victory seemed inevitable for the Fire Beavers for the majority of the game. In a zone pulling to an outer edge of Barometer, Fire Beavers took a really powerful position on the other side of the open water.

They knew that this was the best spot in this zone because they played in the exact same spot in game 3, in an almost identical zone. They won that game comfortably, so the pressure was on to repeat that performance.

Repeat it they did. The Fire Beavers found themselves in a really tense finale to the ALGS Regional Final. The Beavers were joined by Alliance and Acend in the final zone, Alliance were on match point but Acend were not.

It might be that winning the same zone earlier gave them the confidence to stay firm and hold their spot. Using a previously acquired Trident as make shift cover was possibly the key factor that helped them close out victory. With no Newcastle or Gibby they lacked any portable protection in a very open zone.

The Fire Beavers will now head to the Playoffs with the added confidence of having won a match point tournament. They came second in the 2021 ALGS Championship narrowly missing out to SCARZ, and struggled to 18th in the Raleigh LAN Championship finals.

Aurora were the first team to reach match point, making a blistering start to the ALGS Regional final. They came just shy of reaching the threshold in only two games. Dropping into the day's third map, they had already racked up 48 points, just shy of the all important 50 point mark.

Aurora use 'off-meta' picks on both maps. Maggie, Caustic, Wraith on Worlds Edge and Catalyst, Bangalore, Seer on Storm Point. They used Catalyst to full effect on their way to securing match point in game 4. Dominating an open space end zone is effortless when you have Bangalore, Catalyst and a Kraber. The match point format in the ALGS Regional final raised a key question for Aurora. Stick or twist? Would they change legends to protect them from being focused by opposition teams? It's very easy to work out where Aurora are when they use an off meta composition.

The answer, no change in the immediate game. Aurora had already qualified for LAN before the day's action. By finishing second, they were guaranteed to win the Pro League unless Acend or Vexed Gaming took top spot. For them, match point was almost irrelevant to their games. Acend did adjust legends later on, but still to off meta picks - which was probably an adjustment to win the games rather than hide from other teams. On Storm Point, they also kept their Bangalore Catalyst combination.

While they did not manage to close out a win in the ALGS Regional Finals, they took second overall by some margin. For aggressive edge teams, accepting 2nd seems to be the trade off. FURIA adopted the same approach in Raleigh.

Their second place overall helped them to take the top spot in Pro League, which was also up for grabs today. This secures them a very healthy $25,000 in prize money. We've seen at previous LAN Playoffs that Aurora won't bow to any meta, so expect to see their Maggie Caustic combination at LAN. Aurora, who also won the last split of Pro League, are undoubtedly the strongest team in EMEA by some margin.

With the conclusion of the ALGS Regional Final, the 10 teams heading to LAN from the EMEA region is now settled.

The qualifying teams are as follows:

GameWard and VZN will be particularly delighted. VZN recovered from a really poor start in the Pro League and have completed an incredible comeback with their 9th place finish. Elsewhere, GameWard have qualified thanks to Fire Beavers winning the ALGS Regional Final. Their win earned them the automatic qualification spot, meaning their fourth place spot was pushed down to 10th.

There was no real surprises in the EMEA region, all the most notable teams have qualified, and the EMEA region will hope that VISA issues do not hamper their region's ability to perform on the world stage.

For full coverage of the ALGS Split 1 Playoffs in London stay tuned to Esports.gg, and tune into our event page to keep track of all the action!