Image: Ubisoft/Joao Ferreira
With Monday’s games now completed, here’s a quick summary of the day’s action.
The top teams
Team Liquid, TSM, w7m esports, and Team BDS were the only teams to earn all available points, with w7m and Liquid ending tied with the highest round difference in the tournament so far.
Liquid did have a scare against Heroic, as they were almost taken to overtime. A standout performance from UUNO, which included a 1v1 triple kill and a quadruple kill from Jume in round 11 meant Liquid only ended the game at the last possible moment in a 7-5 scoreline.
Heroic also took TSM to 12 rounds, as UUNO was once again the game’s highest-rated player, while BDS also had a similar result against Spacestation despite Elemzje ending with 15 kills to five deaths.
MNM Gaminga are also worth a mention, as they outperformed first-day expectations. While they finished with five points, this included a 7-3 smashing of the group favourites and current runners-up, Soniqs. Their lost point came against CYCLOPS, where MNM had to mount a remarkable comeback after a 1-5 first half.
Similarly, Wolves Esports beat FaZe Clan, with these two being the Group D favourites. This came after only beating the fourth-seeded North American roster, Mirage, 8-7.
The bottom teams
SANDBOX Gaming, Heroic, Spacestation Gaming, and FURY all ended with zero points.
With SANDBOX and FURY being APAC’s two divisional runners-up, their results are not too surprising, with neither of them winning more than four rounds per game.
Heroic, meanwhile, had the two very close games mentioned previously. As such, a comeback over the next two days is still possible, if unlikely.
Heroic previously finished their Charlotte Major group in last place despite being Europe’s top seed. Now, even with zero points, they still sit ahead of SANDBOX Gaming, with these two teams set to face each other during game three tomorrow.
Finally, we have Spacestation Gaming. While they did have the hardest set of games of any team at the Major today, this is still a major disappointment for what is one of only three teams present who have previously lifted a title.
Spacestation lost against BDS in a close 7-5 result despite initially leading on Kafe, 4-2. This is because most of BDS, other than Stéphane "Shaiiko" Lebleu, failed to perform on the offence but then woke up while defending.
BDS’ statistics on the defensive side
The players
Day one’s Most Valuable Player was Wolves’ Bastien "BiBooAF" Dulac.
While he had the third-highest SiegeGG Rating of 1.41 behind Fatih "Solotov" Türker’s 1.45 and Diego "Kheyze" Zanello’s 1.55, he achieved this on Thermite and Kaid while earning the most kills of the day on 29. He also got down the only plant of any players in the top nine by Rating.
Furthermore, Wolves’ opponents were no slouches -- they were the fearsome FaZe Clan, the Berlin Major grand-finalists.
BiBooAF’s closest teammate was Yanis "Mowwwgli" Dahmani as he earnt the 24th-best SiegeGG Rating as he was involved in half of all rounds for his team.
Team Liquid also had a remarkable day as Gabriel "AsK" Santos, Luccas "Paluh" Molina, and Pablo "resetz" Oliveira all had at least a 1.20 SiegeGG Rating. BDS also had Bryan "Elemzje" Tebessi, Shaiiko, and Théo "LikEfac" Mariano hit at least a 1.24 Rating, but had Olivier "Renshiro" Vandroux with a 0.73 Rating despite him not holding the defuser or playing hard breach.
Finally, the three bottom players hail from the APAC region, while Emilio "Geometrics" Leynez and Evan "Kanzen" Bushore are the fifth and seventh lowest-rated players.
Play of the day
While several impressive clutches did take place, the play of the day goes to Shaun "Gunnar" Pottorff’s ace for Soniqs against Black Dragons. This was the tournament’s first ace and took place in Gunnar’s second game outside of North America.