The championship round of MLG T.K.O. European division will be held tonight, with the rightful finalist in Empire and Fnatic facing each other in the finals. The best-of-five showdown is scheduled for 16:00 CET tonight with no team getting a one-game advatnage.
Contrary to usual tournament formats, the T.K.O. tournament puts a tangible advantage for teams who performed well in the previous rounds. However, these advantage were put to little use as the two teams in the finals have consistently topped against the opposition over the three rounds of this competition.
Empire has been on a hot streak ever since the beginning of the year, That is why the MLG T.K.O. tournament, which started February, is among the tournaments that they have done well. In the 21 games across three rounds, Empire has only five times. Interestingly, they suffered three out of those five defeats in the hands of their finals opponent, Fnatic.
Fnatic is not far behind, losing only six times so far in this tournament. But while Fnatic was the bane to Empire, the same can be said for the other as the latter is responsible for half of the former's defeats. The two of the three other Fnatic losses came from teams not even making it past the first stage, Virtus.Pro and Sigma.
Wins-Losses-Draws : 281-129-14 (68%) - matches
Last 20 matches : 25 - 8 (76%) - maps
Common :
Look out for :
Wins-Losses-Draws : 270-177-12 (60%) - matches
Last 20 matches : 21 - 18 (54%) - maps
Common :
Look out for :
Despite showing that they can compete and win against every other team, Fnatic has been very inconsistent lately. They have a mediocre 54% win rate in their past 20 matches. Those past 20 matches do include a championship-clinching win in the XMG Captain's Draft invitational though, so the team morale should still be high.
Empire, on the other hand, has been hot. They have won an astounding 76% of their games. As with Fnatic, they have also secured a title withing their past 20 games. For Empire's case, its the Techlabs LAN tournament on which they have finished unscathed.
The teams' most recent encounter, which was one of the opening matches in the WPC-ACE western qualifier, ended in a 2-0 victory for Empire. With their even performance in T.K.O, it is Empire who has gotten the better out of Fnatic in tournaments outside this one.
The best-of-fiive finals is scheduled at 16:00 CET today. While the tournament format is set to have the leading team after stage three having a one-game advantage in the finals, this particular match-up will start at zero games apiece as they finished with the same number of points.
There will be an English and a Russian cast. You can find the match page, together with the bets, stream and picks, here.
Prize distribution:
Champion: $14,000
2nd Place: $8,500
3rd Place: 
RoX.KiS - $4,500
4th Place: 
PowerRangers - $1,500
5th Place: 
Natus Vincere - $1.500
T.K.O. is a multistage tournament with independent round-robin stages for both America and Europe. A total of $60,000 is up for grabs, $30,000 per division. The teams to be eliminated in each stage are determined by their wins-losses, with the top scoring teams receiving bonus points toward the next stage and a specific number of lower ranked teams being eliminated. Evil Geniuses won the American division after bestng Team Liquid, 3-1.
