The 2024 Shanghai Major just saw two of the favorites to win out of the group stage handed a ticket home, with Cloud9 and Virtus.pro both eliminated from the tournament.
The opening stage for the Shanghai Major hasn’t gone to plan for Europe and the CIS region. Though Team GamerLegion made it through the stage without much trouble, other teams have flopped. Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson may have teased his departure from Fnatic after 10 years after the team was the first eliminated. He’s not alone, though.
The second round of eliminations have seen two of the favorites to advance, Cloud9 and Virtus.pro, both dealt losses. As a result, the CIS squads will be headed home with a 1-3 record.
Ioannis “JT” Theodosiou and Ricky “floppy” Kemery got the better of their former organization, helping Complexity Gaming take a strong 2-0 win over Cloud9. The duo played on Cloud9 in 2020 after it bowed out of the tier-one scene and signed North American regional standouts from ATK.
Following that team’s dissolution, Cloud9 picked up the Gambit Esports roster and moved to CIS. That decision bore some fruit, including two top-eight finishes in majors, but it didn’t look like a swell idea today.
On the scoreboard, Cloud9 dominated the first half of the opening map, Vertigo, with impressive retakes. Vertigo is a historically lopsided map, but Cloud9’s 10-2 start felt insurmountable. Complexity shocked Cloud9 though by matching that scoreline in the second half to force overtime. Complexity wrapped things up quickly from there, to the tune of a 16-13 victory.
That disastrous second half on Vertigo seemingly sucked all the life out of Cloud9. After a competitive start to Ancient, Complexity ran away with things by closing the first half strong, taking the pistol round, and riding the momentum to a 13-8 victory.
Cloud9 will have company on the way home, as Virtus.pro was booted from the Shanghai Major with a 1-3 record by Wildcard Gaming.
Virtus.pro initially looked to be in command of things early on, getting off to a strong, 5-0 start on Ancient. That good start was about the only bit of momentum VP got, though. Though it held onto that early lead on Ancient, the showdowns on Anubis and Inferno were all Wildcard Gaming. Both maps saw Wildcard start strong and close things out confidently, with a 13-7 win on Inferno and 13-8 win on Anubis giving them the 2-1 series victory.
The series was a particularly rough one for Dzhami “Jame” Ali, with the heavily memed AWPer going 36-40 with just 51 average damage per round.
While the two North American squads scored big wins, neither one is safe quite yet. They face do-or-die, best-of-three elimination series to close out the round, with Wildcard Gaming taking on Passion UA and Complexity taking on BIG.
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