G2 Esports and Team Vitality won their Round 3 High matches on Tuesday to advance to the Legends Stage of PGL Major Antwerp 2022 in Belgium.
Vitality defeated forZe 2-1 while G2 beat ENCE, also 2-1. ENCE and forZE will play in Wednesday’s Round 4 High matches as the Challengers Stage continues.
Also advancing to the High matches on Wednesday were Team Spirit, Bad News Eagles (BNE), Astralis and Outsiders. They all won their best-of-one Mid matches on Tuesday.
In the two Low matches, IHC Esports defeated Renegades 2-0 and Team Liquid toppled 9z Team 2-0 to play another day. Renegades and 9z 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 Tuesday, Vitality needed to rally past forZe after dropping the first map, Nuke, 16-12. Vitality took Dust II 16-9 and then Mirage 16-12. Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut of France powered Vitality with 60 kills and a plus-16 kills-to-deaths differential. Denmark’s Emil “Magisk” Reif led Vitality with 62 kills on a plus-11 K-D differential.
G2 opened with a 16-7 win on Dust II before dropping Ancient to ENCE in overtime, 19-16. G2 advanced with a 16-9 win on Mirage. Nikola “NiKo” Kovac of Bosnia and Herzegovina tallied 72 kills on a plus-23 K-D differential. Israel’s Lotan “Spinx” Giladi had 63 kills and a plus-7 differential for ENCE.
In the Mid matches, Spirit beat Eternal Fire 16-11 on Dust II, BNE defeated Imperial Esports 16-12 on Vertigo, Astralis edged MIBR 16-13 on Overpass, and Outsiders beat Complexity Gaming 16-9 on Overpass.
The winners of Wednesday’s three Round 4 High matches will advance to the Legends Stage, and the losers of the three Round 4 Low matches 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 continues Wednesday with six Round 4 matches:
–Astralis vs. Team Spirit (High)
–forZe vs. Outsiders (High)
–ENCE vs. BNE (High)
–Imperial Esports vs. IHC Esports (Low)
–Complexity vs. Team Liquid (Low)
–MIBR vs. Eternal Fire (Low)
–Field Level Media
