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TrackMania Champions League Qualifier Times

Last weekend players from multiple different regions and countries tried to qualify into the BETA Season of TrackMania Champions League. After some intense, and some rather uneven matches we’re left with 16 ‘champions’. These players will battle it out during 10 stages of the BETA Season hosted by Ubisoft and NADEO. But what players did best in the qualifiers, and who is the biggest favorite going into this new event?

The Champions

When the event got announced, the information about each region having different amount of slots created debate in the community. The reason for some regions having more slots than others, were based on potential viewership and strength of the players in that region. Here is the list of champions:

• Bren [FRA]
• Cap [FRA]
• Papou [FRA]
• DexteR [GER]
• Rollin [AUT]
• Kappa [CZE]
• DanikB [CZE]
• Scrapie [BEL]
• Spam [NED]
• Pac [UK]
• CarlJr [CAN]
• zBurst [POR]
• Dunste [DEN]
• Sky [CRO]
• B1ts [LIT]
• Maciey [POL]

Before going into the times itself, I do wanna clarify that the times are influenced by the situation a player is in. If he needs to push due to contenders around him, or if he can do like CarlJr and have a world recording hunting session during his qualifier, due to the level of opponents. Which btw, he got 2 out of the 3 world records. (Last map no cut world record). I still think this list will give some indication on who will do well, but surely not a list that will reflect a potential end result.

A notable fact here is that ‘’TMCL - Sursaut’’ is the only map that is left in the map pack, and will still be played in Stage 1. That map had the biggest differences between the players overall.

Favorites

How are the favorites going into this BETA Season? It’s hard to predict a winner for something new, and unlike any other event hosted before. Where as for tech events you could bet on one of the five guys in Kappa, tween, CarlJr, Pac or Massa to win it, it feels more open now.

However, if I were to name some favorites I would go with a podium consisting of Kappa, Pac and Bren. Kappa due to his recent success at TMWC, as well as showing that he can handle the endurance format well with his two best map times in the qualifiers. Pac only got the 9th best time overall, but knowing that he had a pretty much walkover in his qualifier, it’s left to see how good he is when trained. Pac also won the closest thing we’ve been to TMCL before - Stadium eSports League back in 2016. Last favorite I wanna name is Bren. He is also the player I believe will stand as the champion of champions when the BETA Season is over. This is due to his skills on different maps, such as the ones we’ll see in this event. So far we know that the Stage 1 map pack will only be maps made from the organizers. And if we look at who did best in the qualifier on that style it was Bren. Bren is also on the rise as a ‘normal’ tech player. With solid performance at TMWC 2018 and a 3rd place at Giant Cup 2018.

Who is your favorite to win it all?

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