The first European RMR for the Shanghai Major has begun and day 1 ended without any significant upsets.
The four favorites easily won their matches and will now have to face each other in the third round. The winners will qualify for the Major without having to play more matches.
The losers will likely face underdogs in the next round, so there’s only a tiny chance that they will have to play in the 5th round and potentially the tiebreaker to prove themselves.
The 2 W – 0 L Teams
Natus Vincere, FaZe Clan, Team Vitality, and MOUZ did not run into each other in the first two rounds and as a result, they had nothing to worry about. Only FaZe Clan ran into Team Falcons and were forced to play some OT rounds to claim the victory.
Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev played well but not out of the ordinary. He still needs a lot of training if he wants to return to his previous level.
The other three favorites have accumulated a massive round difference in the first two matches:
- Natus Vincere: +12
- Team Vitality: +15
- MOUZ: +20
MOUZ won both of their matches with a score of 13 – 3, leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind that they are here to win.
The 1 W – 1 L Teams
Here are the teams that had an average performance on the first day of European RMR A:
- Team Falcons
- SINNERS Esports
- Sangal Esports
- BetBoom Team
- Fnatic
- Cloud9
- SAW
- Dynamo Eclot
Four of these eight teams will have a tough match in the third round. Falcons need to win against SAW. BetBoom need to beat Fnatic. Whoever loses in these matches is in a lot of trouble.
The 0 W – 2 L Teams
GamerLegion, who finished 2nd at the Paris Major less than 18 months ago, started the RMR with an impossible match against Team Vitality. They won eight rounds, so a lot of people were still optimistic about their chances despite the loss.
But then they lost again, against an underdog (Eclot). The score was 11 – 13. After this second defeat, it’s hard to believe that they can survive this qualifier.
The other three teams that suffered two defeats on day 1 are Nemiga Gaming, Rebels Gaming, and UniTY esports. The only one that wasn’t supposed to be in this position is Nemiga Gaming. Their global rank is 29 but unfortunately for them, they ran into MOUZ and Cloud9.
