Well for some teams, reaching this point was far more effort than they had hoped for, whilst for a few, it was an even smoother ride than expected. However, as the dirt settles on the first stage of the Major, the 8 teams who went through are FaZe, Copenhagen Flames, Entropiq, Virtus.pro, Heroic, MOUZ, ENCE & Astralis.
For Astralis fans, there were many moments of panic, with the former goliaths going 0-2 down, with surprising defeats to the likes of Entropiq & Copenhagen Flames, before clawing back 3 wins consecutively against GODSENT, paiN & Spirit, sending all 3 of them tumbling out of the competition. Meanwhile, for the likes of FaZe & Copenhagen Flames, they, somewhat surprisingly given poor performances recently, managed to ace all their matches to pass with flying colors into the main tournament in 3-0 manner, with FaZe not dropping a single map in their 2 Best of 1's, and then final Best of 3, the Danish Flames dropped a single map to Heroic in their BO3. Moving to other surprises, Heroic had a surprisingly difficult time, with many expecting great things, they took down MOUZ and TYLOO early on, but struggled to get their final third notch, having to fight through Movistar Riders, Entropiq & Copenhagen Flames in their best of 3's to finally crack that final 3-2 score.
The first set of matches are already set up to start tomorrow (Saturday 30th October), and are as follows using UTC/GMT timezone;
- 0900 - Evil Geniuses vs FaZe
- 0900 - Copenhagen Flames vs G2
- 1015 - Gambit vs ENCE
- 1015 - Liquid vs Entropiq
- 1130 - Virtus.pro vs Vitality
- 1130 - Natus Vincere vs Heroic
- 1245 - NIP vs MOUZ
- 1245 - FURIA vs Astralis
After that, the matches will continue at 1hr 15 intervals, with the final ones starting on Saturday at 1745 UTC/GMT. On Sunday, matches start at 1000, and run through to the last one starting at 1615, matches continue through Monday & Tuesday, with a break day on Wedneday, before the playoffs will get started on Thursday with our final 8 teams ready to dive in for their piece of the $2,000,000 prize pool, and the Grand Final concluding the Major at 1900 UTC/GMT on Sunday 7th November.
As in the previous stage, this one, named the Legends stage, will start with Best of 1's, with all elimination & progression matches being a best of 3, however as teams found out back in Challengers stage, a single slip up in the early BO1's sees you fight for your life and constantly on the burner waiting to be kicked out.
