WePlay Academy League Season 3 group stage comes to an end

The four teams for the LAN finals are now set after the tournament's online stage.

MOUZ NXT, BIG Academy, Astralis Talent and Spirit Academy all punched tickets to the WePlay Academy League Season 3 Finals, set to take place in Kyiv on February 11-13.

MOUZ NXT and BIG Academy both did so as the top-seeded teams in their groups, with the international squad winning seven out of their eight maps played, while the Germans tied with Young Ninjas at 15 points apiece, but topped the group thanks to a 2-0 face-to-face scoreline.

MOUZ NXT are gunning for the three-peat

The other two teams were decided through a play-in, which saw the lowest-placed teams play through a lower bracket against progressively higher placed teams from the group stage.

One of the brackets saw VP.Prodigy take out FURIA Academy and NAVI Junior before falling to another CIS squad, Spirit Academy, who were the strongest team in the group stage behind MOUZ NXT, in the final for a spot in the LAN finals.

The other gauntlet saw Astralis Talent pull off massive upsets, taking out all of the higher-seeded teams, fnatic Rising, NAVI Junior and Young Ninjas, to qualify for the event in Ukraine, making this the organization's first Academy League LAN final appearance.

Notable performances were put on by Spirit Academy's 17-year-old sensation Aleksandr "⁠KaiR0N-⁠" Anashkin, the highest-rated player in the stage with a 1.38 rating, followed by MOUZ NXT's newest addition, Miłosz "⁠mhL⁠" Knasiak, who came in second averaging 1.35.

Rounding out the top three rated players is NAVI Junior's Daniil "⁠headtr1ck⁠" Valitov, who improved last season's 1.21 rating to 1.32 this time around despite his team ultimately not being able to qualify for the offline event.

The teams that will be at the WePlay Academy League Season 3 LAN finals in Kyiv are:

MOUZ NXT
Spirit Academy BIG Academy
Astralis Talent Aleksandr 'KaiR0N-' Anashkin Age: 17 Team: Spirit Academy Rating 1.0: 1.06 Maps played: 110 KPR: 0.75 DPR: 0.71 Astralis Talent #127 Alexander 'Altekz' GivskovFrederik 'Fessor' SørensenVictor 'vigg0' BisgaardBenjamin 'brzer' JensenMikkel 'MistR' Thomsen MOUZ NXT #33 Jon 'JDC' de CastroKamil 'siuhy' SzkaradekMiłosz 'mhL' KnasiakHubert 'szejn' ŚwiatłyDorian 'xertioN' Berman FURIA Academy #164 Leonardo 'zmb' ToledoKaue 'kauez' KaschukLucas 'decenty' BacelarHenrique 'HPS' SoaresBruno 'Bruninho' Rodrigues BIG Academy #79 David 'prosus' HesseKarim 'Krimbo' MoussaElias 's1n' SteinNico 'Aqua' KembitzkyMarcel 'hyped' Köhn Young Ninjas #94 Anton 'Sapec' PalmgrenErik 'ztr' GustafssonLove 'phzy' SmidebrantLinus 'LNZ' HoltängKalle 'Ro1f' Johansson Spirit Academy #99 Dmitry 'S0tF1k' ForostyankoAleksandr 'KaiR0N-' AnashkinMyroslav 'zont1x' PlakhotiaArtem 'ArtFr0st' KharitonovDenis 'notineki' Kalachev fnatic Rising #88 Kevin 'Kevve' BohlinPeppe 'Peppzor' BorakFrancisco 'kst' FragosoIulian 'regali' HarjăuMatias 'Banjo' Kivistö Daniil 'headtr1ck' Valitov Age: 17 Team: NAVI Junior Rating 1.0: 1.06 Maps played: 61 KPR: 0.71 DPR: 0.64 VP.Prodigy #96 Aleksei 'RuFire' BurakovEvgeny 'r3salt' FrolovArmen 'cheerful' EksuzyanIvan 'lom1k' OvsyanikEvgeny 'delus1onn' Plottsov Miłosz 'mhL' Knasiak Age: 19 Team: MOUZ NXT Rating 1.0: 1.13 Maps played: 413 KPR: 0.76 DPR: 0.64 NAVI Junior #100 Daniil 'headtr1ck' ValitovVladislav 'lattykk' VydrinDmitriy 'fen2k' GladskikhMark 'UNBR0KEN' VarakutaAndrii 'npl' Kukharskyi