Alliance, Natus Vincere, Ninjas in Pyjamas and Team Tinker advance to the next round to compete against the highest seeded teams, while the losers must now prepare for their must win elimination games.

Alliance and Team Tinker are the two teams that have stormed from the opening stage of the qualifiers to secure their matches against the top seeds of the European qualifiers. Alliance defeated both newly formed Danish team FlipSid3 Tactics and Power Rangers in straight games to secure to force both teams into the lower bracket. They will now go up against Cloud 9, a rematch of their opening round battle in the previous ESL One Frankfurt. On the other end of the bracket Team Tinker were able to emulate their success, narrowly defeating Elysium Gaming before going on to pick up a default victory over Virtus Pro in the next round due to the team being dropped from their organization. They will now come up againstTeam Empire, a team that will be rated as one of the favourites to claim a spot for Frankfurt. Victory for either team will put them a single victory away from claiming one of those important spots. 

 

Elsewhere in the bracket, second seeds Natus Vincere and Ninjas in Pyjamas overcame their opponentsBalkan Bears Corleone and Vega Squadron to claim their places against the top teams. Natus Vincere will be hoping to defeat Russian side HellRaisers, while Ninjas in Pyjamas will have to fight past the potentially new roster of ASUS.Polar. This does mean that all of the teams that secured their place in the European Qualifier from the previous stage did lose their opening matches, and will have to attempt to force their way back into contention through the long road of the lower bracket. The winner of the lower bracket will claim the third and final place in the ESL One Frankfurt finals.