Team Liquid BR qualify for UB finals while X10 Sapphire and Guild X avoid elimination

Despite being only three days into the tournament, the 1st round of Lower Brackets have already begun and two teams are unfortunately on their way back after a short-lived event. These included KRÜ Blaze and the Japanese FENNEL Hotelava. However, the viewers were also blessed with an Upper Bracket matchup featuring an NA vs BR matchup early in the tournament.

Team Liquid BR vs Shopify Rebellions

For the first matchup of the day, Team Liquid BR faced off against the NA runner ups Shopify Rebellion Female. Considering the each team’s performance yesterday, their meeting in the Upper Bracket semis was bound to be exciting and it did not fail to disappoint from the get-go. Fracture saw an evenly matched coemption between both teams during the first half with Shopify pulling out in the lead with a small margin and subsequently capitalizing on this leeway in the second half to gain the upper hand in the matchup early on. Team Liquid knew better than to let Shopify continue building momentum and therefore tried their best to restrict their opponenets momentum a bit earlier on Bind.

Even though their plan wasn’t executed to perfection, they were able to turn the tides in their favor late in the second half forcing an overtime and clutching the map to take the map to decider. As opposed to the first two maps, decider witnessed less intensity as Team Liquid seemed more comfortable and adept to Shopify’s playstyle as they comfortably navigated 13 rounds of victory as opposed to the 8 held out by Shopify.

KRU Fem vs X10 Sapphire

For the second match, it was the LATAM team KRU Fem facing against X10 Sapphire to avoid elimination. With the staked being higher than ever before, both rosters exerted their best efforts. Breeze was first to welcome both teams and it being KRUs pick made an eminent pattern emerge rather soon. Their aggression drove their Offense to a four-point advantage and ultimately ended up as the difference between their final scores when the map came to an end at 13-9.

X10 weren’t ready to go out without putting up a Challenge as they put on a fabulous showing on Haven, one upping KRU’s earlier performance and taking the map 13-6 while simultaneously forcing a decider and reviving their hopes of staying in the tournament. As it turned out, their outburst was effective because the win on Haven was enough to fuel the team’s spirits to open Fracture with four consecutive rounds and maintain consistency despite switching sides.

Guild X vs FENNEL Hotelava

Minutes after they retained their spot at the GC Championship, two more teams indulged in a battle to avoid elimination. It was the European Guild X against the sole Japanese representatives FENNEL Hotelava. Instead of an intense, nail bighting thriller that the fans were expecting, the matchup proved to be a fascinating display of talent Guild X possessed and deservedly so considering that they lost to the NA Challengers on decider yesterday. Proceedings commenced on Pearl and Guild X’s roster wasted almost no time in getting their corsair up and running.

Their Offense featured a complete bloodbath almost every round against the opponenents ending the half with a 9-3 run and following it elegantly with a flawless second half. Fennel showed slightly more signs of activity on Haven, the second map, with an 8-4 deficit. But all of their attempts at a comeback were rendered futile by the Europeans and they became the second team to return home after the first round of Lower Brackets.