Team Liquid confirmed their ticket to the playoffs with a big win against G2 Esports in the second round of the winner's bracket of Group A and will play against MOUZ for a direct place in the semi-finals.
On the first day of the tournament in China, we watched a total of 12 matches, eight of which were in Group A, where a lot of things had already crystallized. At the start of the tournament, G2 struggled against 9z Team with a 13-10 win, while Team Liquid started with a surprise win over Heroic 13-8. Both FURIA and MOUZ scored victories, and MOUZ almost missed the victory against the TYLOO team, which however succumbed in the very end and suffered an 11-13 defeat.
The match between Liquid and G2 for a place in the playoffs started on the map Ancient, the pick of the American team and the map that was fatal for G2 at the PGL Copenhagen Major. G2 couldn't handle it this time either, Liquid took an early lead and went into halftime with an 8-4 advantage that they later turned into a convincing 13-6 triumph.
Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov led G2 with 25 frags to tie on Anubis where they won 13-10. The teams played to a draw at halftime, but G2 was more specific on the CT side.
Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken marked the decisive Inferno where he helped Liquid make a big 7-0 run at the start of the map that G2 couldn't recover from. Although they closed the gap down the stretch, G2 lost 9-13 and will now need to win their next two matches if they want to make the playoffs.
In the second winner's match, MOUSE managed to defeat FURIA 2-1 (8-13 Nuke, 16-14 Vertigo, 13-9 Mirage) although they were very close to defeat during the second map, but they managed to win overtimes and triumph in them .
Pool B saw the biggest surprise on the first day of the tournament as FlyQuest debuted their new name with a huge 13-6 win against Cloud9 to tie 12 rounds after going 1-6 down to a huge win and the joy of the Australian fans. Virtus.pro and Astralis were convincing in 13-1 and 13-2 triumphs against Wildcard and Steel Helmet, respectively, while FaZe got the better of Nemiga 13-8.
FaZe and Astralis will fight for the playoffs, while FlyQuest will have the opportunity to surprise another Russian team and achieve new success with a victory against Virtus.
