After just three days, Cloud9, Virtus.pro, Fnatic, Imperial Esports, and Rare Atom have been eliminated from the Shanghai Major.
Some of these teams were expected to qualify for the next stage and perhaps even for the playoffs. But unfortunately for them, their preparation was simply not good enough.
The biggest surprise, of course, was the early elimination of Cloud9 and Virtus.pro. Both of these teams had promising results in 2024 and their rosters, at least on paper, looked strong enough to challenge any opponent.
But in the end, they left the tournament with a 1 W – 3 L score and even the victory they obtained was against another team that suffered an early elimination.
Day 3 Results
On the third day of the Shanghai Major, FURIA, paiN Gaming, and GamerLegion added their names to the list of qualified teams.
Meanwhile, competitors like MIBR, Complexity, and Wildcard survived another round of matches and will get the chance to compete in the 5th round.
For Complexity, a victory against BIG would be a huge confidence booster. Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski and his teammates entered the tournament with high hopes but ended up losing their first two matches.
This left them in a very vulnerable position in which they had to win three consecutive best-of-three matches to advance to the Elimination Stage.
No matter who wins tomorrow, another one of the favorites for this stage will be eliminated, bringing the count up to three.
It seems that the Shanghai Major will be similar to many other CS2 Majors in this respect. Numerous favorites getting eliminated early and underdogs turning into dark horses is a story we’re quite familiar with.
Another exciting match tomorrow will be the one between Passion UA and Wildcard. Both of these teams have appeared out of the blue and one of them is now guaranteed a spot in the next phase of the competition.
