Nobody got through cleanly
Four round-of-16 matches opened the Counter-Strike playoffs at the Esports World Cup in Paris overnight. All four finished 2-1. Not one favourite walked through it.
G2 Esports lost the opening map to Astralis, 13-6 on Ancient, then flipped the series with 13-6 on Dust II and 13-7 on Inferno. Nemanja “huNter’” Kovac carried the fightback with 50 kills and a plus-17 kill-death differential, which is roughly the definition of a player refusing to let a series end.
FUT Esports followed the same script against magic. Ancient went 13-9 the wrong way before Dmytro “dem0n” Myroshnychenko took over, finishing with 57 kills and a plus-15 differential as FUT closed out Anubis 13-7 and Mirage 13-8.
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Overtime everywhere
FURIA and Aurora Gaming produced the tightest baseline. FURIA took Ancient 13-11, Aurora dragged Nuke to overtime and won it 16-14, and FURIA then reeled off the final 10 rounds of Mirage to close it 13-9. Kaike “KSCERATO” Cerato and Aurora’s Danil “molodoy” Golubenko both posted 64 kills, and molodoy’s plus-15 went into a losing effort.
MOUZ needed a little more patience. They led after Mirage 13-11, watched GamerLegion force triple overtime on Ancient and take it 22-19, then settled the thing 13-11 on Nuke. Dorian “xertioN” Berman put up 69 kills across the three maps, the highest individual total of the day.
The double-elimination group stage had already cut the field from 32 teams to 16. Astralis, Aurora Gaming, magic and GamerLegion each leave with $35,000 and no club points, which is the harsh part of a bracket this compressed.
Thursday gets busy
The remaining round-of-16 ties run today: Natus Vincere against Legacy, Team Falcons against The MongolZ, FaZe Clan against Team Vitality, and B8 against Team Spirit. G2 do not get a rest day either, opening the quarterfinals against FURIA later on. FUT play MOUZ on Friday.
Everything stays best-of-three until Sunday’s grand final, which stretches to best-of-five. The winners take $600,000 and 1,000 Esports World Cup club points, the runners-up $340,000 and 750. Organisers have already confirmed the Accor Arena is sold out for the final day.
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