During the opening day of the PGL Major Antwerp 2022 we saw the two North American representatives fall down to their European counterparts. This was a tough start for the region and they still had a long way to go in the tournament in order to qualify for the next stage.
Complexity Gaming closed out the first day of the event in a better form than Team Liquid. They were able to take down APAC representatives IHC Esports while Team Liquid dropped their game against Imperial Esports. But taking a closer look at the games, Complexity Gaming should’ve been able to dominate IHC Esports, but they almost ended up taking a loss.
Now on the second day of the major is where things turned around. Complexity would have to take down the Russian team Outsiders if they wanted to qualify for an advancement match on day 3, but they were completely outclassed by their counterpart. Complexity Gaming couldn’t stand the Russian aggression as they were only able to successfully defend 2 rounds on the CT side.
On the other hand, because Team Liquid lost their first two games, they now had to play an elimination best-of-3 series against the Argentinian 9z team. But luckily for Team Liquid, 9z came into this matchup in a really bad form as they had a very frustrating loss against MIBR the day before.
The series ended in a quick 2-0 for Team Liquid meaning that they would have one more chance to fight for a spot in the next stage of the major. But this also meant that they would have to face their fellow North American team Complexity Gaming in a best-of-3 series the following day.
Because North America only sent two representatives to the event, whichever team won the series would have to keep their region’s hopes alive for the rest of the tournament. For the first game of the series, the two teams would play against each other in Ancient. The game was back-and-forth but Team Liquid’s Shox took over the game and led his team to a 16-12 victory.
Even if the score was close, Team Liquid looked way better during the first game of the series, and Complexity knew this. Team Liquid went on to dominate the first half of the second game in Vertigo and this was the beginning of the end for Complexity Gaming. TL closed out the series in a convincing manner, eliminating their fellow North American team from the tournament.
Now while all of this was happening, the Russian team Outsiders was having a battle against ForZe in a best-of-3 series to determine which team would advance into the legends stage. And Outsiders was able to win the series after three games, meaning they were the fourth team advancing further in the tournament.
