What happened at the Major qualifiers - Day 2 debrief

A total of 48 teams are now fighting for their place at the IEM Rio Major as the Europe and Americas RMRs are underway. Let's take a look back at what happened on day two of the Major qualifiers and what to look forward to on day three.

As the two Europe RMR groups entered the second day, history was about to be made.

Seeing ECSTATIC stare down a 2-15 deficit on Nuke against B8, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was over for them — after all, no one had ever overturned that deficit on the map to make it to overtime in the previous 413 times in HLTV.org records. The Danes made it happen on the 414th occasion with an immaculate CT side, but it was all for nothing, as they faltered at the hands of the Ukrainians anyway in overtime.

Later on in the day, OG, ENCE, and Ninjas in Pyjamas, and Astralis all picked up landslide victories when facing some of the underdogs and middle-of-the-pack teams, before it was time for some of the highlight matchups of the day.

Playing at the RMR with s1n subbing in for faveN, BIG upset EPL champions Vitality to go 2-0

Having suffered through quadruple overtime against GamerLegion on day one, FaZe continued to look shaky but got the job done as they once again had to sweat in a 19-17 affair with fnatic on Nuke. Despite playing without Josef "⁠faveN⁠" Baumann BIG surprised ESL Pro League Season 16 champions Vitality after Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire's team let the match go to the Germans' favorite map, Dust2.

Reaching IEM Rio Major-qualifying matches after picking up their second wins in the Swiss stage, Outsiders edged past HEROIC, Natus Vincere took down MOUZ, and Cloud9 came out on top of the biggest game of the RMRs so far against G2.

Standings after day 2
IEM Road to Rio Europe RMR A standings
IEM Road to Rio Europe RMR B standings
IEM Road to Rio Americas RMR standings

Over at the Americas RMR in Stockholm, you might be surprised to see that none of Brazil's biggest teams made it through the first two rounds unscathed while they're fighting for a spot at their home Major. 9z broke the Brazilian fans' hearts twice in their run to qualifying matches for IEM Rio, beating 00NATION and Imperial in two overtime affairs after coming back from 7-14 on Overpass against the former and 2-13 on Nuke against the latter.

FURIA are also 1-1 now along with their aforementioned compatriots after falling short to Evil Geniuses, who will face 9z next for direct qualification to Rio. Complexity and Liquid are on a collision course in the 2-0 pool as well, the latter having looked rather shaky as they escaped from MIBR's claws after overtime on Ancient.

Standout results of day 2

Europe A
Sprout 16-12 Spirit
FaZe 19-17 fnatic
Cloud9 16-13 G2

Europe B
BIG 16-10 Vitality
Outsiders 16-12 HEROIC
Natus Vincere 16-11 MOUZ

Americas
9z 19-16 00NATION
9z 22-20 Imperial
Liquid 19-16 MIBR

Performance of the day

1.61 rating

deko vs. forZe

With a 30-bomb in a 16-14 victory on Nuke, Denis "⁠deko⁠" Zhukov was an instrumental piece in 1win's triumph against their regional rivals FORZE in the second round. You can decide for yourself whether this means the 21-year-old up-and-coming AWPer is indeed the truth.

Score: 30-5-15
Rating: 1.61
Impact rating: 1.60
ADR: 95.7

Play of the day

There were several big pistol round clutches to choose from, including Leonid "⁠chopper⁠" Vishnyakov's and Florian "⁠syrsoN⁠" Rische's 1v4s against Sprout and Vitality, respectively, but it was Valdemar "⁠valde⁠" Bjørn Vangså's ace and 1v4 retake facing off against Falcons that takes the cake for day two's highlight play:

HLTV live coverage

HLTV.org has coverage teams over in Malta and Stockholm to bring you interviews from location, photos, and story updates on Instagram. Here are the interviews we conducted during the second day of the Majors qualifiers:

Timothy "⁠autimatic⁠" Ta: "neaLaN does not have a lot of tier-one experience, but you wouldn't be able to tell"

Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen: "Our main problem this season is that we need 5% more of everything"

Rasmus "⁠Zyphon⁠" Nordfoss: "We know we can good teams. We expect to qualify"

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

Kamil "⁠siuhy⁠" Szkaradek on the FaZe match: "It just proved to us we're capable of fighting against the best teams"

Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander: "The organisation sometimes wants to try something different, you gotta respect it and do your best to keep your spot"

Five teams will qualify for Rio on day 3

Things are starting to heat up as both European RMRs and the Americas RMR are heading into the third round of play on Thursday, where we'll see the winners of the following matches clinch a spot at IEM Rio. One more 2-0 match will take place on Friday between ENCE and BIG.

Thursday, October 6
13:30 FaZe vs. Sprout
14:45 Ninjas in Pyjamas vs. Cloud9
16:00 Complexity vs. Liquid
16:00 Evil Geniuses vs. 9z
18:15 Natus Vincere vs. Outsiders