Team Spirit and ENCE cruised to sweeps while Outsiders had to rally Wednesday to win their High match and gain the Legends Stage of PGL Major Antwerp 2022 in Belgium.
Spirit swept past Astralis and ENCE did the same to Bad News Eagles to advance. Outsiders dropped their first map to forZe but rallied in the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive play.
Astralis, BNE and forZe will play in Thursday’s Round 5 matches.
In other action, Imperial, Team Liquid and MIBR all won their Low matches to advance to Round 5. IHC Esports, Eternal Fire and Complexity Gaming were eliminated.
The major’s opening stage features 16 teams competing for eight berths into the Legends Stage. Utilizing the Swiss System format, the eight teams that won in Round 1 proceeded to the Round 2 “High” matches and the eight that lost moved to the Round 2 “Low” matches. All matches are best-of-one except elimination and advancement matches, which are best-of-three.
On Wednesday, Spirit defeated Astralis 16-12 on Overpass and 16-6 on Ancient. Abdul “degster” Gasanov led all the all-Russian side with 51 kills and a plus-29 kills-to-deaths differential.
ENCE won 16-13 on Dust II and 16-9 on Nuke over BNE. Israel’s Lotan “Spinx” Giladi led ENCE with 49 kills and a plus-20 K-D differential.
Outsiders dropped the opening map to forZe, 16-12 on Dust II. But Outsiders took the next two, 16-10 on Mirage and 16-11 on Inferno, to advance. Latvia’s Mareks “YEKINDAR” Galinskis led Outsiders with 63 kills and a plus-13 differential.
In the Low matches, Imperial rallied to beat IHC in three maps, Team Liquid swept Complexity and MIBR swept Eternal Fire.
The winners of Thursday’s three Round 5 matches will advance to the Legends Stage while the losers will be eliminated from the major. After the Challengers Stage concludes Thursday, the Legends Stage runs May 14-17 in the same format to determine which eight teams will clinch spots in the Champions Stage.
The Challengers Stage concludes Thursday with three Round 5 matches:
Astralis vs. Liquid
forZe vs. Imperial
BNE vs. MIBR
–Field Level Media