Day 2 of the Major has come and gone, and we have our first eliminations and first qualifications! Who’s in, and who’s out? Keep reading to find out!

1-1 Bracket

Match 1: paiN vs ENCE

My brave prediction from last week’s PGL Preview seems like it’s more dumb than anything with ENCE taking an absolute stomping on Nuke, as they only manage to find 3 rounds against the Brazilian outfit, with Rodrigo “biguzera” Bittencourt truly bringing the pain to the Poles (and Dane!), sending them to the elimination bracket with a 13:3 loss.

Match 2: Imperial vs Apeks

Another game featuring a Brazilian team, this time on Overpass, where Imperial faced off against Apeks. Despite a strong pistol start from the EU team on their T-Side, Imperial recovered to win the first half 9:3, and secured the game from there on out, answering a four round run by Apeks with four rounds of their own with João ‘felps’ Vasconcellos leading the way for the Brazilian side to a 13:7 victory.

Match 3: GamerLegion vs Legacy

Yeah, another Brazilian team! But this time, the result’s different. The EU mix came out on top in an easy win on Vertigo with hometown hero Frederik “acoR” Gyldstrand leading the way for the Legion, leaving Legacy facing elimination today after a 13:4 loss.

Match 4: ECSTATIC vs Lynn Vision

The only fully Danish team in Copenhagen vs the only full Chinese squad. One of them will go into the qualification bracket, one of them will head to the brink of elimination. The arena is Overpass. Despite a pistol and a conversion from Lynn Vision, ECSTATIC took over the rest of the half, winning 9 consecutive rounds before the Chinese team got back on the board. With a 9:3 half, it looked EZ for Ecstatic, however Lynn Vision did manage to pull back 5 rounds on their CT side before succumbing to the pressure of Tobias Kragh “kraghen” Jensen and Co., losing 13:8.

2-0 Bracket

Match 1: Heroic vs Eternal Fire

The first qualifiers awaited as (mostly) hometown heroes faced off against the sensational Turkish outfit. With the game being a BO3, a lot changes for both teams in terms of strategy and map pool. Eventually, Eternal Fire picked Vertigo, Heroic picked Mirage and Overpass was leftover. 

The Turks’ map pick was a banger with Heroic losing their CT half 9:3 despite starting off with three consecutive rounds, only to recover winning nine consecutive rounds of their own before Eternal Fire staved off the loss by finishing off with three consecutive rounds of their own, before eventually succumbing in overtime.

After Eternal Fire lost their map pick, their odds were against them on Mirage, and despite the Turks winning the first half 7:5, they lost 8 straight rounds to fall to the 2-1 bracket, while Heroic guarantees a large Danish presence in the Elimination Stage with a dominant 3-0 qualification.

Match 2: Cloud9 vs SAW

The commentators were really adamant about Cloud9 being a potential tournament winner despite their low ranking, and so far, they’re proving worth the hype. As the map picks saw the Portuguese team pick Nuke, the CIS superstars pick Anubis and Ancient be picked as the potential tiebreaker, SAW had a similar journey to Eternal Fire. A back and forth first and second half on Nuke set up a double overtime thriller that eventually saw C9 coming out victorious at 19:17, before absolutely dominating their T-Side on Anubis, winning 13:9 despite SAW’s best efforts.

This means that C9 are undefeated heading into the Elimination stage, while SAW will have to use one of their remaining two chances if they want to continue their underdog journey in Copenhagen.

0-2 Bracket

Match 1: TheMongolz vs AMKAL

The Underdogs from Ulanbaatar faced off against a potential upset machine in the classic unknown CIS team in a loser-goes-home must-win match. The map picks were Nuke for AMKAL, Mirage for TheMongolz and Inferno (for the first time in this tournament) as a tiebreaker.

You’d think that the team picking a given map would be confident in it, however, this match was… weird. TheMongolz wiped the floor with AMKAL on Nuke, winning a dominant 13:2 victory with relative ease. However, their momentum wouldn’t continue as on Mirage it was AMKAL taking the win following an insanely strong CT-Side. So it all came down to Inferno, a map we haven’t seen in this tournament so far.

The match was back and forth all the way, with neither team being able to string more than 3 rounds together at any point of the game. Eventually, however, TheMongolz managed to nickel-and-dime their way to a 13:10 win off the back of an insane 27 kill performance from Garidmagnai “bLitz” Byambasuren, sending AMKAL packing and keeping the Mongolian team in the game.

Match 2: KOI vs FURIA

We finish off with the Spanish-Portuguese-Romanian KOI facing off against the Brazilian FURIA. The Brazilians picked Overpass, while the Euros picked Vertigo, with Nuke becoming the potential decider…

A decider that never came to be as FURIA took their map easily with a 13:6 win on Overpass off the back of a tremendous 10-2 T-Side. Vertigo started out even-steven with a 6:6 half before FURIA took over on their CT-Side, finishing out the series and KOI’s Major journey with a solid 13:9 win.

What’s next?

We’re in the endgame now with every match being an elimination or qualification BO3. Here are the brackets.

The most interesting match of the bunch is definitely the ENCE showdown against FURIA, as both teams are popular and both feature multiple-major winning IGLs in Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander and Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo. Who will win? We’ll see.

And if you want to bet on the semifinals and finals with slightly better odds courtesy of our recent eliminations, be sure to do so on our Major Madness page!