by in
On the first day of the opening stage at the Perfect World Shanghai Major, FlyQuest and The MongolZ have sprung somewhat of a surprise by claiming two dominant victories to top the standings.
The highest-ranked Counter-Strike squads from the Asia region entered the opening stage of the Major as underdogs given the strength of the competition in the first stage.
FlyQuest, who had to face Complexity and BIG, were not considered a serious threat to qualify for the elimination stage, let alone sit one win away from becoming one of the teams to finish the stage with a 3-0 record.
#ShanghaiMajor2024 Opening Stage Round2:
Cloud9 13-5 Fnatic
FlyQuest 13-5 BIGMore Moments here: https://t.co/ng05IqwNa8 pic.twitter.com/rVVqoW9O6k
— CS_PerfectWorld (@CS_PerfectWorld) November 30, 2024
For The MongolZ, they are ranked as the fifth-best team on the Valve Global Rankings, and they were favoured to advance from the opening stage.
The Mongolian squad was rated as a +1500 chance with esports betting sites to win the Shanghai Major, and it is expected that those odds will only shorten if they continue playing at this level.
#ShanghaiMajor2024 Opening Stage Day1
1-0 Bracket: The MongolZ 13-6 MIBR
0-1 Bracket: PUA 13-9 COLMore Moments here: https://t.co/ng05IqwNa8 pic.twitter.com/S4znzIvx2w
— CS_PerfectWorld (@CS_PerfectWorld) November 30, 2024
Joining the Asian teams in the 2-0 pool will be Team Liquid and GamerLegion, who also eeked out successive wins in Shanghai, and they will require a best-of-three series victory to advance to the main event of the Major.
At the other end of the spectrum, Complexity and Fnatic, who were well fancied in their clashes, struggled to put rounds together and suffered back-to-back losses to sit at the bottom of the standings, just above Rare Atom.
Rare Atom, who are the lone Chinese squad, could only manage six round wins from their two best-of-one matches, which leaves them with slim to no chance of qualifying for the elimination stage, needing to win three straight best-of-three series to advance.
Complexity was the biggest surprise of day one, as they didn’t record a single victory against FlyQuest and PassionUA.
Fnatic also struggled, losing to Wildcard and Cloud9 in their respective matches, leaving them with a lot of work to do to advance to the elimination stage.
Virtus.pro, paiN Gaming, Imperial Esports, Cloud9, MIBR, BIG and Passion UA find themselves in the 1-1 pool after recording one loss and one win on the first day.
The opening stage will continue on Sunday, when the first two teams will be eliminated and two will advance to the elimination stage.
Sunday’s Opening Stage matches
- BIG (+110) vs Virtus.pro (-151.52) @ 11am CST
- MIBR (-120.48) vs Passion UA (-120.48) @ 11am CST
- FURIA (-188.68) vs Wildcard (+137) @ 12pm CST
- paiN Gaming (-111.11) vs Cloud9 (-125) @ 12pm CST
- Rare Atom (+500) vs Fnatic (-909.09) @ 1pm CST
- Team Liquid (-333.33) vs FlyQuest (+240) @ 1pm CST
- The MongolZ (-333.33) vs GamerLegion (+240) @ 4pm CST
- Complexity (-188.68) vs Imperial (+137) @ 4pm CST
