Some epic matches took place this past week, with Team Tidebound securing a $200,000 prize on their Dota 2 win, and MenaRD showing Kekaru who’s boss in Street Fighter 6. On top of that, IEM Cologne took place, with some of the craziest headshots, and even the guys in Valorant secured qualifying spots for the Global Finals. Check all this out, and a neat local recap from Mettlestate in this week’s Esports Weekly Recap.
League of Legends:
With just over three more weeks remaining of the split for the LCK, LPL and LEC, and just over a week left for the LTA and LCP groups, things have been heating up in the rift.
Currently, Gen.G and HLE lead Group A, while things are still in the air for Group B in the LCK. BLG and TOP Esports lead Group A in the LPL, while EDG and NIP hold the top spots in Group B. FNC and BDS hold Group B in the LEC, while Group A is a little more turbulent, with KC and GIANTX currently in the top 2 spots.
In the LCP, TSW and CFO hold Group A, with MVKE and SHG currently in the lead for Group B. C9 and FLY hold the top two spots for LTA North, and KSI and PAIN hold the top spots for LTA South.
Still, T1 can’t seem to crack the win on Gen.G just yet.
Dota:
Team Tidebound took the win at the Clasvision Masters, securing a neat $200,000 prize. The next major event on the calendar is the Fissure Universe: Episode 6, with a prize of $125,000 for the winners. Teams are still to be decided.
Counter Strike:
IEM Cologne took place this past weekend, with an allocated prize pool of $1,000,000. That’s a major kitty and the top teams went all out this weekend vying for first place. We’ll be interviewing some of the casters from the event soon, so keep an eye out for that on www.nag.co.za.
The semi-final playoffs saw MOUZ defeat Team Vitality 2-0, and Team Spirit took down Natus Vincere 2-1. With Team Spirit being the “underdogs” in the final, they managed to secure a 3-0 victory over MOUZ, taking home $400,000 just for themselves.
Valorant:
With the amount of games that have taken place over the past week, we’ve seen many teams gain their qualifying spots over the specific regions.
The Sentinals have qualified from the Americas Region, while Team Heretics, Team Liquid and Fnatic have secured their spots from Europe.
Gen.G, Paper Rex, Talon, T1, DRX and DFM have all grabbed their spots from the Pacific Region, while China will kick off their playoff matches this coming weekend
The current top four standings from each region are:
| Americas | China | EMEA | Pacific | |
| 1 | Sentinals | N/A | Team Heretics | Detonation FocusMe |
| 2 | 100Thieves | N/A | Fnatic | DRX |
| 3 | Cloud9 | N/A | Giantx | Gen.G Esports |
| 4 | G2 | N/A | Team Liquid | Nongshim RedForce |
Be sure to have the Chinese Playoffs loaded up, as those matches are going to be one hell of a watch.
Fortnite:
The Grand Finals for the Third leg of the Fortnite Major took place last weekend, with every team giving it their all. While the matches were hot, only a few of the top teams from each region managed to grab some of the prize money, with even fewer teams qualifying for the Global Final next year.
The qualifying teams from each region are:
| EU | NAC | NAW | BR | AS | ME | OCE | |
| 1 | Tjino
PabloWingu Fredoxie |
Ritual
Cold Peterbot |
Bacca
Parz PXMP |
WeY
Gabzera Scarpa |
Rise
Koyota yuma |
Balor
Adapter Mansour |
Resignz
alex Anon |
| 2 | vic0
Veno Flickzy |
Ajerss
Acorn Pollo |
Tinka
Cazi Aspect |
||||
| 3 | Vanyak3kk
Pixie MariusCOW |
||||||
| 4 | Setty
Japko panzer |
The Global Finals kick off on the 3rd of September.
Apex Legends:
While we await the Last Chance Qualifiers for the 2026 ALGS Championships, teams are doing their best to ensure they have what it takes to grab those last remaining spots.
EA FC/Rocket League:
The FC Pro 25 World Championships kicked off yesterday, and all of the upper bracket qualifiers are already sitting pretty as we await the lower bracket teams to finalise their matches.
Qualified already, we have Obrun2002, nicolas99fc, EmreYilmaz, AbuMakkah, Jonny, ManuBachoore, danipitbull, and GuiBarros.
Street Fighter:
Street Fighter 6 always delivers some epic livestreams, and EVO was no different. Across the 80 combatants, the event secured a winner in MenaRD, who seemed to have some pretty smooth sailing throughout the Finals Bracket.
Second place was awarded to Kakeru, with third going to Micky.
Mettlestate Update:
This week in Esports, there is a big highlight on the Fighting Game Community, with the EVO Championship concluding just this last weekend, the fighting spirit is carrying through locally with two major tournaments. BLG (Battle League Gaming) has kicked off its new platform with BLG Azishe tournament, two R25,000 tournaments for Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8, both with the bonus of a trip to Nice, for EVO FRANCE, truly a special opportunity for local players.
For Tekken players that’s not all, Showmax has also hit the scene with a R15 000 Tekken 8 tournament with their Showmax Fan Day 2 competition, an online Tekken tournament giving bonus prize pool to Showmax subscribers and a chance to mingle with the Youngins cast in person!
Get your controllers ready and get involved at Mettlestate.com
Got a favourite moment from this week’s esports recap? Let us know your top picks in the comments below.
