$22,000 LAN tournament Journey Summer 2026 took place June 12-14, and Peter “stanislaw” Jarguz’s squad took part in the tournament as one of the highest seeded teams, skipping the Group Stage on the first day as they were seeded directly into the Playoffs. Going up against the other 15 teams remaining in the tournament, Metizport had a relatively rough start against Latvian “atputies”, but ultimately closed out the match 2-0 on Mirage and Nuke.
In the Upper Bracket quarterfinals the Danes in EA Copenhagen waited, and this matchup became a real nailbiter that went to all three maps before Metizport were finally able to finish the chapter. The first map of Nuke ended up being a quintuple-overtime game, which finished 28-26 to Vincent “vinS” Jozefiak and his men. The second map of Mirage just barely slipped out of the team’s hands, finishing 14-16. On the third and final map of Overpass, however, it became clear who was the better team and Metizport closed out the series with a 13-7 victory.
vinS was on the edge of his seat in the match versus EA Copenhagen. Photo: Edwin Vikman
In the Upper Bracket Semifinals, Nexus Gaming stood in the way, or at least so it seemed in the start. The European squad had previously sent Alliance, the tournament favorites, into the Lower Bracket with a 2-1 result. However, on the first map of Overpass versus Metizport, they weren’t able to claim a single round. Overpass finished 13-0, with David “forsyy” Bílý dropping a 2.03 rating. On map 2, Inferno, it was pretty much the same story – the opponents were given three lone rounds in the entire best-of-three-series as Metizport brushed Nexus aside in a 13-3 fashion.
Now having secured top 4, the second highest ranked team in the tournament fnatic waited in the Upper Bracket Finals. With Overpass as the first map in the series, and having just beaten Nexus 13-0 in the previous match, Isak “isak” Fahlén volunteered to serve the same verdict to the all-Ukranian fnatic, finishing the first half with 2.50 rating as Metizport went into the second half with a 12-0 scoreline. In the second half, fnatic were able to string together a few rounds, but it was far from enough and Metizport closed out the map 13-7. On Mirage it was instead Maciej “F1KU” Miklas who led the troops, and with a 9-3 finish for Metizport in the first half the game already seemed to be theirs. Four more rounds on the T-side were collected with ease and that was it, Metizport were now in the Grand Finals of ROG Journey Summer 2026 after a dream Upper Bracket run.
F1KU enjoyed himself versus fnatic. Photo: Edwin Vikman
It ended up being Alliance who would deny the team of the gold medal, as the all-Swedish team had managed to make it through to the Finals through the lower bracket. The match-up was as close as it could get and went to all three maps. Nuke finished 15-19, Anubis finished 13-5, and Inferno finished 11-13. Looking back, Metizport was essentially one single round away from taking the entire series, after a lost 3v1 situation on Nuke at match point.
Still, in the end everyone was happy with the result. “We went into the event aiming for a deep playoff run“ says Metizport’s Sports Director Morten Vollan Christensen. Being able to contend so closely with Alliance, ranked 30th in the world, was a big achievement for our team and organization. We know that we are on the right path, and will continue fighting to climb on the rankings and improve as a team. The 2nd place finish at ROG Journey Summer 2026, with a little over $4,000 in prize winnings, helped the team climb over 30 spots on the global ranking. They are now ranked 68th in the world and are heading into the summer break with high spirits. They will be back in July, and we are already planning our next event.
zEVES sat behind the team in every match
Stay tuned and thanks to everyone who supported us this weekend!