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RAE Predictions — 2026 Boston Open #3 (Week Two)

Who will claim North America's tickets to the Boston Major?

February 3, 2026

With last weekend's six-region bonanza done and dusted, just four spots remain to be claimed for the first Major of RLCS 2026.

It'll be North America stepping up to the plate after last week brought us a further taste of the chaos that's defined much of this season to this point. We'll see if it can deliver.

If you'd like a detailed explanation of what exactly RAE is, you can find one here.

EU/SAM/MENA/OCE/APAC/SSA Recap

Broadly, Europe followed the script last weekend besides for Man City's Top 4 run and NOVO's Friday collapse. RAE correctly predicted the five favorites to hold their Major spots through the weekend, despite Geekay requiring a tiebreaker to secure theirs, and it will be the region's five strongest teams advancing to the Major in RAE's eyes.

South America, too, largely went as expected, with the predicted FURIA and MIBR clinching the region's two spots in Boston. The only real tripping points were Chromax's weak result and Emerald's overperformance, as the region once again had its four strongest teams in the Top 4.

Even with having nothing to play for besides the region's #1 seed, MENA was RAE's best, even with multiple upsets out of Everything and R8 Esports as well as MMT regressing further (those four matches were the only ones the model missed).

OCE broke RAE's hot streak, with a topsy-turvy Group B combining with Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs' shock event win dropping its accuracy rate. The region sending PWR rather than Wildcard will certainly hurt its chances at a Top 8 — Wildcard's rating after a potential event win would've been around 1690. PWR's is currently 1550.

Project Delacruz cleaned up shop once again in APAC, though it did drop a few games in the playoffs, which resulted in a small net rating loss this time around. The region remained highly predictable by-and-large, as it was RAE's second-best this week.

Finally, SSA was RAE's worst region this week, as the extremely narrow margin between its middle-of-the-pack teams resulted in plenty of missed predictions in the GSL Stage. Five Fears' win also bodes poorly for the region's Major chances, though its unlikely Pioneers would've performed much better, to be honest.

Overall, RAE scored just under an 80% accuracy rate last weekend, which can be broken down as follows:

EU: 24/30 (80%)
SAM: 23/28 (82%)
MENA: 25/29 (86%)
OCE: 20/27 (74%)
APAC: 22/26 (85%)
SSA: 21/29 (72%)

North America

NRG Esports remain at the top of the NA mountain, with Shopify Rebellion holding only a narrow lead over Spacestation Gaming for 2nd. [REDACTED], despite their meteoric rise, remain in 4th and only slightly ahead of FUT Esports and Gen.G Mobil1 Racing. RAE likes SHUFFLE'S KITTENS as NA7 thanks to their absense of poor losses, with Dignitas edging out M80 and Lotus 8 for the NA8 spot.

Let's go over some of the more controversial picks.

What's with Shopify-SSG-[REDACTED]?

I'll start with SSG still being this close to Shopify, since that's the easiest to defend.

Rebellion started the season out a good 65 points ahead of Spacestation, but that gap narrowed despite both teams gaining in Open 1 thanks to them splitting series in the GSL Stage and Grand Finals. Then, in Open 2, SR got swept by in-form NRG and lost narrowly to [REDACTED]. SSG, meanwhile, lost to Dignitas. So what gives?

What gives is that Shopify actually lost more rating than SSG did last event. Yes, the Rebels generally had a better result, but they also lost rating in (almost) every series they played (all besides for the 3-0 against Apple Slices, which net them +3). Dropping any games to that Dignitas team (which SR did twice, by the way) will lose you rating, and it bled a bit from Shopify in between their bigger hits against NRG (a 4-0 is a 4-0 at the end of the day) and [REDACTED] who RAE still views as a bit worse than NA2 and NA3.

SSG still had a bad tournament in their own right (they also lost rating in all but one of their series), but the 3-0 over FUT bought them some room to drop. Plus, losing 1-3 to NRG isn't as bad as a 4-0, and if you're going to lose to Dig, you might as well make it a Game 7 defeat.

As for [REDACTED], it's the age-old case of RAE refusing to adjust as quickly as public perception. The team obviously started low compared to NA's top 3 (top 4 at the time) thanks to adding a then-bubble player (tawk) alongside two mediocre Worlds performers, and to be fair, they've skyrocketed up near 200 rating since then thanks to several quality wins:

3-2 vs NRG in Open 1 (+38)
3-1 vs NOVO at the Kickoff LAN (+24)
3-0 vs NIP at the Kickoff LAN (+62)
4-3 vs Rebellion in Open 2 (+25)

At the end of the day, [REDACTED] should probably be rated higher than this, but quick rises like theirs are so rare that adjusting an Elo model to try to incorporate them will create more inaccuracy than just allowing the team's rating to more slowly come to where it should be. We'll see if their Open 3 can solidify their spot in NA's Top 4.

Can FUT lay claim to NA's final Major spot?

Stop me if you've heard this one before: they're not favored, but they have a shot.

I know, this is a boring answer. They're only 1 point back of SSG, but not only are they generally considered to be a weaker team, but they've gotten dominated in the head-to-head so far this season (0-7 across two series) — one that they could realistically need to win to surpass SSG and claim NA's final spot.

FUT's stayed about where they started the season — they really are the gatekeepers of the Major race, only losing to SR and SSG in main events. If SSG shows up with another early exit, that one-point gap could mean that all FUT needs to do is secure a Top 6, though a Top 4 would go a long way in making them feel more comfortable.

Wait, if FUT are the gatekeepers of NA's Top 4, then what does that say about...

Can Gen.G make another miracle run?

Gulp. Here we go again.

Look, I'm not going to say that they can't. They have higher odds than last time, in fact: 7.1% vs 4.7% in their Birmingham-clinching win last season. But lightning surely can't strike twice, can it?

Unlike last season, the primary teams contending fr the Major aren't being screwed over by bracket luck (like 9Lives) or are insanely inconsistent (like SSG early last season). This season's iteration of Spacestation is a rock-solid roster (probably), and FUT are no pushovers — ask Gen.G themselves about that one.

At the very least, they'll likely have a chance to knock FUT down a peg on Friday, and a very doable upper bracket spot on Saturday seems to be within reach. A Top 2 gives them a fighting chance, though a 1st place clinch is definitely the most comfortable path for this Gen.G roster.

Frequently overlooked in analyzing Gen.G's path to the Major last season was the ease of their playoff bracket: Strictly Business into a weakened Complexity into POAB clinched them a tiebreaker before they finally took a good win over Ultimates. They might need that kind of luck this time around, though with how the bracket's shaping up (NRG into the SSG-SR groups loser if they can get past FUT), I wouldn't count on it. Probably.

RAE Odds — NA Open #3

Team	Major	Top 1	Top 2	Top 4	Top 6	Top 8	Top 12
Shopify Rebellion	>99%	14.7%	38.8%	72.5%	87.1%	94.3%	>99%
NRG Esports	>99%	63.5%	79.3%	95.4%	97.9%	98.6%	>99%
[REDACTED]	97.5%	4.8%	21.1%	58.2%	87.9%	95.2%	>99%
Spacestation Gaming	67.5%	11.8%	32.9%	66.8%	83.8%	92.6%	>99%
FUT Esports	28.4%	2.9%	13.1%	46.2%	71.0%	88.7%	>99%
Gen.G Mobil1 Racing	7.1%	2.1%	12.6%	36.2%	70.4%	88.3%	>99%
SHUFFLE'S KITTENS	<1%	<1%	1.2%	12.1%	39.0%	60.7%	96.3%
Dignitas	<1%	<1%	<1%	6.4%	26.6%	53.5%	92.4%
Lotus 8 Esports	<1%	<1%	<1%	1.2%	7.2%	27.3%	66.3%
M80	<1%	<1%	<1%	3.3%	16.2%	42.1%	88.0%
ciel	<1%	<1%	<1%	<1%	4.5%	13.0%	75.5%
90210	<1%	<1%	<1%	<1%	5.0%	23.9%	72.6%
United Rogue	<1%	<1%	<1%	<1%	1.7%	10.2%	35.1%
Freedom	<1%	<1%	<1%	<1%	<1%	3.3%	20.4%
foul merchants	<1%	<1%	<1%	<1%	<1%	5.0%	29.1%
Fromage SkouikSkouik	<1%	<1%	<1%	<1%	<1%	3.2%	28.3%

Shopify haven't mathematically clinched a Major spot yet, though in none of RAE's 1,000,000 simulations did they miss the Major (they clinch with a win on Friday). NRG and [REDACTED] are overwhelmingly likely to join the Rebels, while SSG has a tentative hold on the final spot. FUT lurk, waiting for them to falter, while Gen.G tries to find another horseshoe to propel them to a surprise Major berth yet again.

Beyond them, SHUFFLE'S KITTENS, Dignitas, Lotus 8, and M80 can all at least pretend to be competing for the spot this weekend. Everyone else is just along for the ride.

RAE Major Odds by Placement — NA Open #3

Only teams with >0.03% chance of qualifying for the Major are shown. Some odds may be inaccurate due to the low sample size of that specific outcome.

Team	Overall	1st	2nd	3rd-4th	5th-6th	7th-8th	9th-12th	13th-16th
Shopify Rebellion	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	>99%
NRG Esports	>99%	✓	✓	✓	95.5%	85.8%	73.1%	47.7%
[REDACTED]	97.5%	✓	✓	✓	97.8%	92.3%	75.9%	56.6%
Spacestation Gaming	67.5%	✓	98.5%	85.6%	29.3%	6.5%	5.3%	<1%
FUT Esports	28.4%	✓	90.6%	39.3%	12.8%	<1%	<1%	-
Gen.G Mobil1 Racing	7.1%	✓	39.8%	3.5%	<1%	-	-	-
Lotus 8 Esports	<1%	97.7%	16.8%	<1%	-	-	-	-
SHUFFLE'S KITTENS	<1%	29.2%	<1%	-	-	-	-	-

Shopify is basically already in, while an undefeated Friday for NRG and [REDACTED] likely gets them each to Boston.

SSG and FUT are racing for the final spot, with the crucial one-point tiebreaker going to the former. For Gen.G, a win is good as gold for them, while second at least allows luck to be a factor.

Lotus 8 are in a similar spot to Gen.G points-wise, though for them, 1st is more of a necessity than a guarantee. SHUFFLE'S KITTENS are hanging around thanks to their high perceived team quality, though even a 1st place for them likely won't do the job.

To summarize, here's who RAE thinks qualifies for the Major:

NA: Shopify Rebellion, NRG Esports, [REDACTED], Spacestation Gaming

Riveting stuff, I know. Thanks for the support this last week; I'll be providing more updates as the event progresses on my Twitter page, so drop a follow if you want to stay up-to-date with who's projected to take the Major spot. If it's anything as chaotic as last season, you're going to want to stay in the know.

I'll see you all for the Boston Major write-up. Hopefully I'll have some exciting news to share for you by then. 👀

Pyroblocks