Which teams will move on to the New Champions Stage?
Image Banner © FACEIT Major
The FACEIT Major: London 2018, the second Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major tournament, moves on to the New Legends Stage while bidding goodbye to its first eight participants.
After almost a week of intense CS:GO action, Team Liquid, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Astralis, compLexity Gaming, HellRaisers, BIG, Vega Squadron, and Tyloo were able to survive the New Challengers Stage, leaving North, Team Spirit, OpTic Gaming, Gambit Esports, Rogue, Renegades, Space Soldiers, and Virtus.pro out of the competition.
Team Liquid and Ninjas in Pyjamas ended the New Challengers Stage in a pretty convincing fashion. Both teams were able to reserve their New Legends Stage slots without dropping a single map against their opponents. NiP was able to exceed more than what they were expected of them when they pulled off an upset against Astralis, the number one team in the world right now.
Meanwhile, the former powerhouse in Virtus.pro was one of the first teams to bow out of the race. The CIS squad has had a pretty rough season that started from their early elimination at the ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018, the first Major CS:GO tournament of the season. They weren’t able to pick up the right pace along the entirety of the season despite a dominant showing during the prior year.
Before the start of the competition, one of the CIS squad’s long-time player, pashaBiceps, also admitted in an interview that the FACEIT Major: London 2018 could possibly be his last Major tournament.
Asia’s top representative, Tyloo, snapped their slot out of the jaws of elimination. Ending the first four rounds of the New Challenger Stage with 2-2 win-loss score, the BnTeT-squad was forced to face Team Spirit in a go big or go home best-of-three series. The fifth and final round of the stage ultimately determined which among the teams will live to see the next stage of the tournament.
The series ended heavily in favor of Tyloo, 2-0, but both games of the series were tightly contested by Team Spirit. The second map of the series, Inferno, even went to an overtime. Tyloo survived the duel with a two-round advantage, keeping the CS:GO dream alive for their Asian fans.
The New Legends Stage of the FACEIT Major: London 2018 will start on September 12, 2018 with the legends in G2 Esports facing off against HellRaisers.
