Heroic, FURIA among teams to score wins in Roobet Cup openers

The Danish team beat Aurora despite benching two of their star riflers just before the match.

dupreeh averaged a 1.27 series rating in his return to the server

The first day of Roobet Cup 2023 has concluded with the favorites coming out on top of their opening matchups, although each match required all three maps to resolve in the favor of Virtus.pro, Movistar Riders, FURIA, and HEROIC.

The GSL group stage, which features 16 teams divided into four groups, kicked off with opening games in Groups A and B.

Attention was already on HEROIC given that they were set to debut with Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen in the tournament, but all eyes were drawn to them after they announced the temporary benching of Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard and Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund just before the tournament kicked off.

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The Danish team had to use MOUZ NXT duo William "⁠sirah⁠" Kjærsgaard and Christoffer "⁠Chr1zN⁠" Storgaard as stand-ins for their benched riflers, and the pair proved capable in the team's opening match against Aurora. An overtime loss on Overpass gave way to 13-9 and 13-8 victories on Nuke and Mirage for HEROIC, with sirah closing out the series with a 1v2 clutch.

FURIA was the other team in Group A to net victory in their opening game, losing their own pick of Ancient to Eternal Fire in overtime (13-16) before reverse-sweeping the series with wins on Vertigo (13-4) and Mirage (13-11).

The Brazilian team, who have managed to keep hold of Kaike "⁠KSCERATO⁠" Cerato despite interest from Liquid, will take on HEROIC in the Group A winners' match on Friday for a spot in the playoffs. Eternal Fire and Aurora, meanwhile, are set to fight for their tournament lives in an elimination match.

Date	Matches
Roobet Cup 2023
27/10/2023	HEROIC 15:00 FURIA	Match
27/10/2023	Aurora 18:25 Eternal Fire	Match
25/10/2023	HEROIC Finished 2:1 Aurora	Match
25/10/2023	Eternal Fire Finished 1:2 FURIA	Match

The favorites in Group B also won out, with Movistar Riders reverse-sweeping 9z to narrowly secure victory. The Spanish-majority side couldn't get much going on 9z's pick of Nuke (7-13) at the start of the series, but scored wins on their Ancient pick (13-9) and then denied a comeback from the South American team on Inferno (13-11) to edge out a win.

Spirit started the day strong with a win over 9INE, but that was quickly soured when they lost the grand final of CCT North Europe Series 8 to BIG.

Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets had performed superbly in the tournament until the title-deciding match. where he dropped off compared to his usual level of impact, and it was a similar situation in Spirit's opening match against Virtus.pro. Dzhami "⁠Jame⁠" Ali's side lost Ancient at the onset of the series (7-13), but recovered with wins on Overpass (13-4) and Mirage (13-9) to put themselves through to the winners' match.

Virtus.pro and Movistar Riders will lock horns on Friday for a spot in the playoffs of Roobet Cup, while Spirit and 9z will hope to avoid an early exit in Group B's elimination match.

Date	Matches
Roobet Cup 2023
27/10/2023	Movistar Riders 14:00 Virtus.pro	Match
27/10/2023	9z 18:00 Spirit	Match
25/10/2023	Movistar Riders Finished 2:1 9z	Match
25/10/2023	Virtus.pro Finished 2:1 Spirit	Match