Gambit Esports and BIG won their opening matches Wednesday at the $250,000 Funspark ULTI 2021 event.
Gambit beat Complexity and BIG defeated Fnatic, both by 2-1 scores, to move into the upper bracket semifinals.
Funspark ULTI is a double-elimination tournament that runs through Monday. All matches are best-of-three except for the best-of-five grand final. The upper bracket side will be given a 1-0 lead in the finale. The event winner earns $150,000 and one of two Funspark ULTI 2022 berths.
In Friday’s upper bracket semifinals, Gambit will face Entropiq and BIG will take on K23.
Gambit opened Wednesday’s match with a 16-11 win on Ancient. After Complexity won 19-16 in overtime on Vertigo, Gambit closed it out with a 16-8 decision on Dust II.
Dmitry “sh1ro” Sokolov of Russia paced the winners with 85 kills and a plus-38 kills-to-deaths ratio.
BIG followed a similar path to victory, opening with a 16-7 win on Overpass before falling 19-17 in overtime against Fnatic on Mirage. BIG advanced with a 16-12 victory on Nuke.
Leading the way for BIG were Germans Johannes “tabseN” Wodarz with 68 kills and Florian “syrsoN” Rische with a plus-17 ratio.
There are two lower bracket Round 1 matches on Thursday:
Complexity vs. ECSTATIC
Astralis vs. Fnatic
–Field Level Media