It’s day 2 of the PGL Major Antwerp 2022 and we already have three teams that secured a spot in the legends stage. Yesterday we had a bunch of interesting results, G2 Esports and Team Vitality were the first two teams to advance into the next stage. On the other hand, Renegades and 9z team were the first two teams that got eliminated from the event.
But the Swiss system format gets more intense as the tournament progresses. On day 3 we would have one of the best series in the event so far, Astralis would be facing Team Spirit in a best-of-3 series to determine which team would be the third one advancing to the Legends Stage.
Yesterday we saw Astralis take down the Brazilian team MIBR in Overpass, and although they somewhat struggled during the game, they were able to close out the game in a convincing manner. Now if we look back to the opening day, they completely dominated APAC representatives IHC esports, but Astralis took a loss against Team Vitality, which is one of the teams that already qualified for the next stage.
Team Spirit had the same dominant run on the first two days of the event. Even if we take into account their 19-17 loss against G2 Esports, Team Spirit ended up looking like one of the strongest teams in the tournament by far. But now, they would have to face Astralis in a best-of-3 series to show their supremacy.
These two teams had something similar in common, they both dropped their games against G2 Esports and Team Vitality, the first two teams to guarantee themselves a spot in the Legends Stage. So even if they didn’t have a flawless record coming into their series, they were still considered the strongest teams in the Challengers Stage.
But the series ended up being somewhat disappointing, even if Team Spirit secured the first game of the series in a shaky way, they completely rolled over Astralis on Ancient in the second game. Astralis was only able to pick up 18 rounds throughout the two games, making us wonder if they will 100% make it into the legends stage.
Now on the other side of the bracket, we had an encounter between the APAC representative IHC Esports and Brazil’s Imperial Esports. If we are being honest, the Brazilian squad came into this match looking way better than IHC Esports, but the series ended up going all the way to the third game.
The first game of the series ended up in a win for IHC Esports, making things very exciting from the get-go. In game 2, IHC Esports mounted up a good defense in Overpass but ultimately ended up losing the game, evening the score in the series. Now heading into the third game Imperial Esports were looking like a much stronger team, and as expected, managed to score a win in their books.
Now Imperial Esports and Astralis will have one more shot at making it into the legends stage. Team Liquid, ForZe and Bad News Eagles are some of the teams remaining in the Challengers Stage.
