The wait is finally over, the EWC has begun!

One of the biggest highlights in the CS calendar is here, and we’re all set for unforgettable clashes. With roaring crowds bringing the energy in Riyadh, the stage is set for epic showdowns you won’t want to miss!

(For disclosure purposes to the EU Comission’s Directorate-General for Financial Services, the above paragraph was sponsored by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. Delete this addendum before publishing).

Relax, we’re kidding. No Saudi money here. Not yet, anyway. At the rate they’re throwing money at everything that moves, who knows how long we’ve got left.

Now, getting to what really matters, Counter-Strike.

We’ve gotta say, what we’ve seen over the past two days has been genuinely exciting. They’ve been packed with storylines and upsets, so we’ll do our best to highlight the main ones.

Let’s kick things off with G2 vs Falcons. NiKo and m0NESY facing their former team. Given their history, we were hoping for a bit more excitement from the match itself.

For some reason, NiKo nerfed himself during Cologne by playing 16:9, but now he’s back to the trusty 4:3, and let’s just say he should stick with it. He and m0NESY swept G2 without much effort, in what was a stinker of a match for pretty much every G2 player.

But honestly, the playing field wasn’t level. Falcons had a huge advantage. They played at home, with their loyal fans $upporting them every step of the way. They even brought out a tifo. The Golden Hornets finally have some serious competition.

On the contrary, the HEROIC vs Spirit matchup was one we had our eyes on and didn’t disappoint. Somehow, some way, HEROIC managed to pull off the win.

Just to be clear: HEROIC - playing with Alkaren, a Spirit Academy graduate making his tier one debut, without their coach who was off getting married, and tN1R, who’s leaving the team to join the very squad he was facing (and destroying) - defeated the team that had just won IEM Cologne and BLAST Bounty back-to-back, ending their 10-series win streak. Not even Shakespeare could’ve come up with this one.

The reality is HEROIC got lucky. They happened to play Spirit on one of the three days of the year when donk isn’t posting 1.50+ ratings.

But it wasn’t all upsets in the Middle Eastern lands.

In yesterday’s two quarter-final series, Vitality and The MongolZ sent TYLOO and 3DMAX home. Vitality made quick work of the Chinese, with a monster 2.69 performance from ZywOo on the first map, setting the tone for the rest of the (short) series. The MongolZ, meanwhile, struggled a bit against the French, but ultimately secured their semi-final spot. Maybe they should ask the Brits for some tips.

So, to recap: the teams eliminated right off the bat in the round of 16 were Liquid, Astralis, GamerLegion, Virtus.Pro, G2, FaZe, NAVI, and Spirit.

If someone had told us just six months ago that these would be the first teams eliminated from an event, we’d have called them crazy. Along with a few more colorful things we won’t repeat here. **