The Opening Stage of the first ever Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) Major has finally concluded, and we now know the teams that made it to the Elimination Stage and those that did not make the cut.

All the teams advancing from the Opening Stage to the Elimination Stage are Cloud9, Heroic, Eternal Fire, FURIA, TheMongolZ, paiN Gaming, Imperial Esports and ECSTATIC.

The two teams that advanced 3-0 through the stage were Cloud9 and Heroic showing a dominant performance in all three of their games with Cloud9 defeating SAW and Heroic defeating Eternal Fire.

Eternal Fire would advance with a 3-1 record while SAW would completely collapse going from a 2-0 record to being eliminated from the major with a 2-3 record.

SAW was dominant in the best of ones, but one of their biggest critiques coming into the Major was their lack of production in best of threes which showed heavily in the major. SAW was unable to win one map in any of their best of threes getting 2-0’d by Cloud9, paiN and FURIA to get eliminated from the major. SAW would lose to a FURIA team that did the exact opposite of what SAW did in the Opening Stage.

FURIA would go down 0-2 losing their second match in embarrassing fashion against the Chinese team Lynn Vision. Many viewers and fans alike were already calling this another masterclass choke job for FURIA again at a major with them being knocked out early in the Paris Major as well. However, this is not the FURIA of the past and this time they rallied behind their star players with Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo leading them in a huge way especially against SAW to qualify for the Elimination Stage. FURIA is entering into the Elimination Stage with a lot of momentum, and it will be interesting to see how they approach the best of ones considering they struggled in them during the Opening Stage.

The two teams that were eliminated 0-3 in this major were AMKAL and KOI. KOI was a team many saw having a 50/50 chance of advancing to the Elimination Stage, but game after game they simply disappointed with embarrassing plays like allowing FURIA to defuse a bomb late game on Vertigo when it was a 5v5 post plant on the A bomb site.

AMKAL put up more of a fight in all of their matches, but in the end could not keep up with the high pace playstyle of TheMongolZ losing 1-2 to be sent home from Copenhagen.

Other surprising early exits from the event include Apeks and ENCE who both could not win a best of three with ENCE being eliminated by FURIA and Apeks being eliminated by Legacy.

The biggest implication from this Opening Stage is with three American teams and one Asian team making the Elimination Stage that means that both regions will now have more slots to qualify for the Shanghai Major in December. Asia will go from two slots to three and the Americas will now have seven spots for the next major. If any of these teams make it to the Playoffs then their region will get a direct invitation for the next major usually being the highest rated team from the region.

The Elimination Stage has already started and you can watch the games on the PGL A Twitch and B streams.