Quest Esports, Team Aster and Team Liquid all won three matches as part of the two-day sprint to qualify for the group stage of the Riyadh Masters on Wednesday.
Aster and Liquid both went 3-1-0 in Group A, punching their ticket to the group stage.
Quest went 3-0-1 in Group B.
The top two teams from each group — plus four others — advance to the group stage while the other four will be eliminated.
Quest’s only setback came to Xtreme Gaming in a sweep. Xtreme Gaming is 2-1-1 and tied with 9Pandas with one day left.
The $15 million Riyadh Masters features 20 teams, eight of which advanced directly to the group stage.
All matches in the play-in stage are best-of-two in a single round-robin format. In addition to the group winners, the third- to sixth-place teams from each group will be matched and will play each other from opposite groups. The winners advance while the losers go home.
The Group Stage begins Friday and features two groups of eight teams each. Those matches are best-of-two in a single round-robin format. The top four teams advance to the upper bracket of the playoffs while the fifth- and sixth-place teams from each group advance to the lower bracket. The remaining teams are eliminated.
The playoffs are from July 25-30 and will be double elimination. All matches are best-of-three except for the grand final, which is best-of-five.
The winning team pockets $5 million with $2.5 million going to the runner-up.
Play-in action continues on Thursday with six matches:
–Team Liquid vs. Team Aster (Group A)
–TSM vs. Virtus.pro (Group A)
–Execration vs. Entity (Group A)
–beastcoast vs. Quest Esports (Group B)
–Team Secret vs. 9Pandas (Group B)
–OG vs. Xtreme Gaming (Group B)
Riyadh Masters prize pool
1st: $5 million — TBD
2nd: $2.5 million – TBD
3rd: $1.7 million – TBD
4th: $1.2 million – TBD
5th-6th: $800,000 – TBD
7th-8th: $500,000 – TBD
9th-12th: $300,000 – TBD
13th-14th: $200,000 – TBD
15th-16th: $100,000 – TBD
17th-20th: $50,000 – TBD
–Field Level Media