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The cathedral of Counter-Strike has opened one last time for Global Offensive and as the sermon starts, we are told the tale of play-ins.
ESL insist they’re part of the main event, although common nomenclature suggests it's a qualifier – honestly, who cares. We’ve had a load of CS in just a few days and that’s all that matters.
So here’s a tl;dr on Cologne as it’s happened so far, as quickly as we can. Except for MOUZ and fnatic, we’ll get to those.
Who would’ve thought, losing your star player and identity does NOT produce good results? Into The Breach got slapped by NIP in their opening game 16-5. In the lower brackets, TheMongolz didn’t mess around and cleanly 2-0’d them to set up a date with FURIA.
Wait, how did FURIA get there?
By losing to Monte in the upper bracket. The way that game came to be is quite impressive, Monte beating Imperial comfortably wasn’t on the cards after they lost BOROS. FURIA was on the opposite end of that spectrum by nearly losing to Grayhound.
Nearly isn’t enough though.
They might’ve nearly beaten one Brazillian team, but they lost their BO3 against Imperial. But hey, they won a map, even if it took all 30 rounds. Imperial earnt themselves a game against NIP for a Group Stage spot.
NIP will come later, so how about Apeks, Astralis, and Liquid?
Liquid played Astralis, and Astralis won as per usual. On the other side, a point for good GMing, Apeks beat BIG and look as good as they did at Paris. Apeks even nearly beat Astralis, having match point on the deciding map, but they choked. It happens.
All of that ended up with Liquid beating BIG, they now play 9INE to decide who goes to groups.
Oh, we almost forgot. OG and COL played each other also in the Battle of Midway. OG won that, proving once again that bottom EU>NA’s best. Okay, maybe that’s a bit mean M80 might be NA’s best.
When you read this, there’s a good Cologne is about to get started again. So open your stream and enjoy the fireworks.
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Apeks 
BIG 
FURIA 
OG 
