We spoke with team captains @dreamcrazzy (Riot NA) and @KimmieRiot (Riot EU) on the build up to the FPL Qualifiers which took place on Friday 24th – Saturday 25th February 2017 and their thoughts going into the tournament. Both teams were unsure of how they’d perform due to lack of practice due to commitments outside of the game.
We are happy to announce that both of our teams played fantastically throughout the qualifiers and managed to secure a place in Season 3 of the Female Pro League.
We have gone into more depth on the successes of both of our teams over the weekend:
Riot EU
Kimmie, captain of Riot EU gave us a breakdown of how their qualifier run went. Take a look at what she had to say:
“First game was a no show, this meant that we had more warmup time ready to prepare for our second game vs Insomnia eSports who were a North Amercian Team. We ended up winning this matchup comfortably 2-0, with the Hardpoint scores being 250-140 and the SnD 6-2. The 3rd game ended our winners bracket run going against one of the strongest teams in the league – Fury. I think the lack of matches beforehand hindered us and we weren’t ready for what they brought to the series, and we definitely should have been more prepared for this top squad. We lost the game vs Fury 2-0 and continued to get some practice in ready for the loser’s bracket.
Our first losers bracket game was against fabE – a well-respected EU team, we won the game 2-0, Hardpoint was 250-128 and the SnD being a bit closer, closing it out with a 6-4 win. We weren’t expecting to lose against fabE as we won majority of the maps in practice building up to the qualifiers.
Our final game, our team were a little sceptical as to what the final result would be. We went against PuLse, which we knew would be a challenge. Ever since we started competing in female tournaments, the French players on the roster have always been our number one competitor since Advanced Warfare. PuLse were the better team on the day and took the series 2-1 which knocked us out of the qualifiers, giving us 5th seed into the league.
Our aim for the weekend was to qualify, which we achieved. Now we will really be putting in the time to make sure we perform to the best of our ability!”
Riot NA
Riot NA had a fantastic Qualifier run and managed to maintain the 2nd seed going into Season 3 FPL, @dreamcrazzy gives us a breakdown as to how they did it in such good fashion!
“First game we played against Synergy. We took the first match with ease winning the hardpoint 250-47 and the 2nd map on SnD was 6-2. Our round 2 match we won by forfeit to cE Guilty.
3rd round we played PNDA Gaming. This was a more challenging team and we were excited to play them. We took the hardpoint in a very close game winning 250-248 and 6-4 in SnD. We definitely under estimated this team, they gave us a run for our money!
4th round we played PuLse (French team) and won the hard point 250-123 and the SnD 6-3. We feel like this would’ve definitely been a closer match up if they were on North American connection as they’re a great team!
5th round in the Winner Bracket final we played team Fury. This was our biggest rival yet and we were determined to give it our all. With a very close first map we lost by just ONE point 249-250. Hardpoint has always been our weakest game mode, however we did not give up there. We went on to take the series 2-1, winning the SnD 6-3 and 13-4 in the Uplink. xLethalLadyx in the Uplink played out of her mind and led our team to victory with a whooping 47 kills and 2 ball carries. It was an amazing game as she kept calling in back to back streaks and acquired a warden!!
This win put our team through to the Grand Finals, where we waited all day to finally play Illicit. All games were close, but as mentioned before Hardpoint has always been our weakest gamemode. In order to Illicit to take the win, they had to win a back to back bo3. We won first map 250-245, however we fell short in the SnD and Uplink just shy of 1 round and 1 point. The second bo3 we started off losing hardpoint and then 2nd map we were down 2-5 in the SnD. QueenSelly did not want to go down without a fight. She dropped a crazy search game with 19 kills and us to win 6-5. 3rd and final map we lost the uplink 5-6. It was a VERY close game!
Although spirits were down after losing, we couldn’t be upset with our seed. With little to no practice before the qualifiers we did not do bad at all. If anything it woke us up to start practicing everyday again and fix our mistakes. What is our weakest game mode will soon be our strongest. What really matters is the league and making it into finals.
This time we won’t be going down easy!”
Take a look at the final seeding from this weekend’s event:
We are very much looking forward to see how our teams do throughout Season 3 and we will be keeping the #RiotFam up to date every step of the way!
For more information on the Female Pro League check out their social media pages here, alternatively head over to their website for the latest news!