The Opening Stage of the Shanghai Major ended with a lot of heartbreaking results. Multiple favorites were eliminated and a few potential dark horses, despite their great start, were also sent home.
The Qualified Teams
Here are the eight teams that survived the first stage of the tournament:
- The MongolZ: 3 W – 0 L
- Team Liquid: 3 W – 0 L
- GamerLegion: 3 W – 1 L
- FURIA Esports: 3 W – 1 L
- PaiN Gaming: 3 W – 1 L
- Wildcard: 3 W – 2 L
- BIG: 3 W – 2 L
- MIBR: 3 W – 2 L
As you can see, there are three Brazilian teams among the winners, which is great news for Brazilian and South American Counter-Strike.
The MongolZ also confirmed their strength. In 2024, they had a lot of excellent results and won two important tournaments: YaLLa Compass ($200,000) and Thunderpick World Championship ($500,000).
In the RMRs for the Shanghai Major, they dominated the Asia-Pacific region and finished with two consecutive victories. This team could easily qualify for the playoffs as well. A lot will depend on who their opponents will be.
Team Liquid also had a great start in this competition, winning against Cloud9, Wildcard, and FlyQuest.
The 3 W – 1 L teams qualified relatively easily and only lost against another top team. This shows that their strategy is very solid and can only be defeated by a genuinely superior team.
Wildcard, BIG, and MIBR won their opening matches but then struggled a lot, losing not just against top teams but also against teams that ended up being eliminated. In the Elimination Stage, their chances of success are slim.
The Eliminated Teams
These are the teams that left the tournament earlier than they would have liked:
- FlyQuest: 2 W – 3 L
- Passion UA: 2 W – 3 L
- Complexity: 2 W – 3 L
- Virtus.pro: 1 W – 3 L
- Cloud9: 1 W – 3 L
- Rare Atom: 1 W – 3 L
- Imperial Esports: 0 W – 3 L
- Fnatic: 0 W – 3 L
For Complexity, who lost their first two matches, losing the 5th was particularly painful.
Two other teams who suffered painful eliminations were FlyQuest, who won their first two matches and then lost three consecutive times, and Passion UA, who had a 2 W – 1 score but lost two best-of-three opportunities to qualify.
Cloud9, Virtus.pro, and Fnatic entered the tournament with high ambitions and excellent rosters but had an approach that simply didn’t work against their opponents.
