EG deny FURIA chance at defending Legends status; 9z miracle run continues

The single Legends spot FURIA earned for the Americas at the last two Majors will go to a different team in this cycle.

Evil Geniuses are now one victory away from securing a spot at the IEM Rio Major following a hard-fought 16-14 win over FURIA in the Americas RMR.

The North American side previously beat Nouns and will next face off against another 2-0 team in a best-of-three series on Thursday for a coveted place at the Rio de Janeiro tournament.

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max: "We'll consider any result other than qualifying for the Major as failure"

Meanwhile, 9z joined Evil Geniuses in the 2-0 pool after pulling off a second massive comeback on day one of the RMR. The South American squad previously turned a 7-14 deficit around to upset 00NATION and now survived a 2-13 start on Nuke against Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo's Imperial, winning both matches in overtime on the back of impressive CT side efforts.

CeRq was the man of the hour in EG's win over FURIA

With just one spot in the IEM Rio Major Legends stage on offer at the Americas qualifier, FURIA can no longer earn a direct berth there and secure the single Legends spot the region had thanks to the Brazilians' quarter-finals finishes at PGL Major Stockholm and PGL Major Antwerp.

Andrei "⁠arT⁠" Piovezan's team will now fight for one of the Challengers stage spots, which will go to the 2nd-6th placed teams at the Americas RMR. FURIA need to win their next two matches to qualify directly, or at least two out of the next three to play in the sixth-place decider bracket.

After the first matches of round 2 in Stockholm, the standings look as follows:

Group Swiss

2W - 0L

Evil Geniuses

9z

1W - 0L

Complexity

Liquid

MIBR

paiN

1W - 1L

FURIA

Imperial

0W - 1L

00NATION

ARCTIC

O PLANO

Nouns

TeamOne

ATK

Isurus

Infinity