Americas Stage 1 Playoffs Preview

Looking ahead into Americas Stage 1 Playoffs, BenPom says that G2 are the no. 1 team to beat, which makes sense as the perennial powerhouse of Americas. Yawn. After that it’s… 100 Thieves? And then Leviatán? Also, LOUD are in the Playoffs? Suddenly, things look a lot more interesting! This split, we have one of the most interesting fields in domestic history, with narratives galore. Let’s discuss and make some predictions!

As previously alluded to, LOUD’s appearance in Stage 1 Playoffs is shocking. A few years back, LOUD were a staple of VCT — 2022 Champions, 2023 Americas Champions, 2nd at LOCK//IN, and 3rd at 2023 Champions. Even in 2024, LOUD were at least 2nd at Kickoff. Since then, it’s been nothing but disappointment for the Brazilian fans. In 2025, not only did they fail to make a single international event, they didn’t even make one of the two Americas Playoffs (8 out of 12 teams in the Americas do each split). In 2026, any hope you might’ve had for LOUD seemed for naught, as they not only had the worst Pythagorean rating at Americas Kickoff, but they had the worst Pythagorean rating of any team across any region during 2026 Kickoff.

Somehow, in Stage 1, they’ve begun to turn things around. Last week, they managed to get to 2–2 (with two reasonable losses to G2 and MIBR and two reasonable wins against Envy and C9). At that point, it seemed like they were no longer bottom-of-the-barrel in VCT Americas. However, with their most recent win against Leviatán (who BenPom had as a top-10 team in the world before that match), LOUD is making a push to be considered an international-caliber team.

Before I go on to question LOUD’s legitimacy, it’s important to note how great this is as a fan. LOUD has one of the largest fanbases in VCT (perhaps the largest, with 11 million followers on Instagram), a hallowed legacy, and deserving players (this is not just referring to Luk xo; Darker and Erde have proved their worth as rookies). As a neutral party, I give them my full support and would love to see this team succeed.

However, it’s one thing for me to give them my support and another to give them my belief. LOUD were one round away from losing 0–2 to Leviatán twice (rounds 23 and 24 of Breeze). After losing on Bind 13–3, losing on Split 13–10 (or 13–11) would have made this a convincing match loss for LOUD. Let’s also remember that this Leviatán team has been faltering recently, losing to MIBR the match before this one. On the other hand, they played G2 close (9–13 and 10–13), as they actually gained BenPom rating for that loss. Secondly, their roster is new (and young) as Erde has only played the two most recent after just turning 18, notching 1.31 and 1.10 ratings. They should only get better with time. Thirdly, Bind (a map they went 0–2 on in Split 1) is leaving the map pool.

BenPom has them as the worst team in Americas Playoffs by a healthy margin, at a −1.02 rating. However, I find this to be a bit harsh. These past matches with different roster iterations carry a lot of weight in their rating and perhaps undersell the difference Erde could make (and has made) in their performances.

If their previous two matches (the only ones with their full roster) were the only ones in the dataset, their BenPom rating would be:

This is (of course) not a statistically sound method, but it’s food for thought. This rating would put them above MIBR and just below Furia.

With the new map pool, more practice time together, and their momentum, this is a team that could easily punch above its weight. Are they the worst team in Americas Playoffs? Probably. Could they beat a top team that’s been stumbling recently? 100%. I’d like their odds against teams like Krü, MIBR, or Furia. With an exciting young roster that’s reestablishing LOUD’s standards of winning, I will be rooting for LOUD, and you should be too.

What I find most surprising in BenPom’s Americas rankings ahead of Playoffs is 100 Thieves being in second. An important caveat to this statement is the fact that the difference between 1st (G2) and 2nd (100 Thieves) — a 1.11 differential — is larger than that between 2nd (100 Thieves) and 5th (Krü) — a 0.63 differential.

Last I remember, 100 Thieves were likely to miss Playoffs after only beating EG and then falling to Sentinels and NRG; neither of these teams looked that convincing, and thus 100 Thieves looked doubly unconvincing in losing to them. Their two wins afterwards must’ve done a lot of work.

First, they beat Krü 2–1, who were the highest rated team in VCT at the time:

Then, they beat Furia 2–1, another great team. The key behind this rating, though, is their round differentials. When they beat Krü, the only map they lost was decided by 3 rounds while their wins were by 9 and 7. When they beat Furia, the only map they lost was 4 while their wins were by 5 and 7. These round differentials mean something, and BenPom lets us know that.

Similarly to LOUD, they’re another team with deserving players who seem to be catching momentum at the right time, against the right opponents (re: Krü). Do I buy it? Honestly, not really. A highly variable 100 Thieves team seems like something to be wary of, especially when they’re losing their best map (that 9-round win against Krü was on Bind). Additionally, look at their record in Split 1 when the game is decided by 3 or fewer rounds:

100T in close maps (≤3 rounds) — Stage 1
0–4 record

vs SEN	Haven	L 10–13	(Δ −3)	Apr 19
vs SEN	Split	L 17–19	(Δ −2)	Apr 19
vs NRG	Lotus	L 10–13	(Δ −3)	Apr 25
vs Krü	Haven	L 10–13	(Δ −3)	May 2

That’s not a good sign where they’re gonna have to play close games against good teams.

In a bracket where there are slim strength margins between 2nd and 5th, every small detraction can have big implications — especially when only the top 3 teams qualify. For Cryo’s sake, maybe this 100 Thieves team can live up to their rating and qualify for their first international since Masters Shanghai in 2024.

While they’re 1st in BenPom by a healthy margin, I’m not completely convinced. The three teams they’ve beaten this split sit at the bottom of the BenPom rankings for Americas. Meanwhile, the two other teams they played, they lost to. They’re (justly) given a cushion for:

• Performing well at Santiago
• Losing by narrow margins (e.g. they won more rounds than they lost in losing to Leviatán)
• Winning by healthy margins

Still, they’re not as indomitable as their ranking might suggest.

To me, Furia are the biggest question mark. Not only is it hard to figure out how well they will do, but even to figure out how well they should do. On one hand, their rating is much lower than other Americas teams. On the other hand, this is the same team that went flawless in the last Americas bracket we watched (Kickoff). On one hand, they’ve lost 2 of their past 3 matches (handily). On the other hand, their only winless map (Bind) is getting removed from the map pool.

My thoughts are this: they will not put up poor performances as a proven playoff team. However, in order to win (let alone qualify) they’ll need some of these other “question mark” teams to regress. If teams like Krü and Leviatán are able to put aside their recent struggles, I’d be pessimistic about Furia.

Enough narrative and “my thoughts.” Instead, let’s see what BenPom thinks:

After 20,000 simulated brackets, here’s how often each team wins it all:

And here’s how often each team qualifies to London:

The difference between BenPom predicting NRG to make the Grand Finals and also having the second-worst odds of winning Playoffs highlights the disadvantage of coming in as a 4-seed. BenPom likes NRG in each of its matchups up until G2; the problem is just winning that amount of (borderline) coinflips. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Krü is predicted to bomb out of the tournament 0–2, but has the second-best odds of qualifying, highlighting the advantage of being a 1-seed.

The only surprising thing here is the amount of faith BenPom has in MIBR. Honestly, I don’t think it’s wrong, I just thought the margin-heavy algorithm would be too dissuaded by MIBR losing to ENVY 1–13, 3–13.

I’ll explain my Krü pick. As I’ve established, G2 faltered against good teams in Split 1, and no BenPom score would make me able to look past that. In general, their domestic form has been middling, both in Kickoff and Split 1, so I’d pass on them. Plus it’d be boring to pick the favorites. As for the remaining contenders, the pack between 2 and 5 is extremely close. So, I looked for these little +/−’s within them.

• Leviatán are inexperienced, losing their best map, and coming off of two losses. They’re the easiest to write off. Having watched their games, I would’ve probably picked them two weeks ago, but in recent matches it’s been a bit of Neon and friends.
• 100 Thieves are also losing their best map, but being unable to close out close games is what makes me start to doubt them. At the end of the day, 100 Thieves, well, 100-Thieves-ness makes me the most nervous (hence my having them go 0–2). Picking 100 Thieves to go to an international is like picking the Bills to win the Super Bowl. You know they’re not gonna do it.

That leaves NRG and Krü. When it comes to the playoffs, experience matters, and Saadhak/Less might be the best combo of experience in IGLing/shooting that you could ask for. Seriously, those two have been the most impressive duo of Split 1 by far (other contenders are Trent/Babybay and Erde/Luk xo). NRG are, as a whole, more experienced, but have had worse results than Krü — this includes getting stomped by Krü in Week 2. NRG’s BenPom score is bolstered by this expectation that they’ll be able to come back into form, which I’m increasingly doubtful of after they barely beat Sentinels in a do-or-die match. The opposite is true for Krü, whose BenPom score is dragged down by the performance their substitute roster put up in Kickoff. If you filtered Krü’s BenPom score to just include matches they’ve played with their full roster, it would look like:

That still places Krü at 5th, but it’s a better rating.

People forget how historically great Saadhak is as an IGL, and if he’s shooting hard enough to be the 6th-highest-rated player in Americas, it’s hard to pass on that in a playoff environment. People have also forgotten that Less has top-5 mechanics in VCT, as he’s the 2nd-highest-rated player in Americas now, hitting clips like this:

This roster is the only one to go 4–1 (or better) in Split 1, and gave me no reason to doubt them coming into Playoffs. I believe Saadhak’s IGLing and Less’s consistent mechanical brilliance will bolster Dante and Silentzz in their first VCT playoffs. They’re a hungry team with a lot to prove, which can’t be said of NRG or G2. Their team dynamics, narrative, and pure performances are better than the rest. According to BenPom, I have an 81% chance of being wrong, but I like my odds.