AMKAL book PGL Major ticket after 9 Pandas win

AMKAL reaped the benefits of their Falcons upset as they squeezed by 9 Pandas in the final round to make it to Copenhagen.

AMKAL are the latest team to book a place at the PGL Major Copenhagen off the back of a hard-fought 2-1 win over 9 Pandas in the fifth round of the Europe RMR A tournament.

With the win, the Russian side capped off a draining run through the tournament, during which they endured triple overtime against Ninjas in Pyjamas to earn their first victory and another overtime affair in an elimination map against Falcons.

Date	Matches
PGL CS2 Major Copenhagen 2024 Europe RMR A
14/02/2024	AMKAL Finished 9:13 Enterprise	Match
14/02/2024	Ninjas in Pyjamas Finished 20:22 AMKAL	Match
15/02/2024	fnatic Finished 13:11 AMKAL	Match
16/02/2024	AMKAL Finished 2:1 Falcons	Match
17/02/2024	9 Pandas Finished 1:2 AMKAL	Match

Their qualification means that Kaisar "⁠ICY⁠" Faiznurov and Aleksandr "⁠TRAVIS⁠" Timkiv will make their first Major appearance next month, while for Vladislav "⁠Krad⁠" Kravchenko, Aleksei "⁠NickelBack⁠" Trofimov and Igor "⁠Forester⁠" Bezotecheskiy it will be their fourth, third, and second, respectively.

9 Pandas' loss in the final round doesn't mean they are eliminated from contention for a place in Copenhagen, but it paints a bleak picture. They will have another opportunity to make it from the Last Chance Qualifier in a week, where only one team out of six will advance.

Denis "⁠seized⁠" Kostin's team will rue the missed opportunity after converting their opponents' pick, Inferno at the beginning of the series. They recovered from a 3-6 start in the second half to win 10 rounds in a row, in many of which they capitalized on AMKAL's mistakes in two-man advantage situations, winning a halfbuy, two 2v4s and a 1v3 en route to the opening map win.

AMKAL were quick to shake off the harrowing first map. Despite losing both pistol rounds on Overpass, they had the map under control with a dominant display on the CT side spearheaded by TRAVIS and well-timed A executes in the second half giving them a much-needed five chances to close the map out.

It came down to Nuke, which followed a similar script. 9 Pandas once again got off to the better start but couldn't put a solid defense together after AMKAL didn't let them string rounds together off the back of a couple of quick upper executes and splits.

9 Pandas then claimed a 9-8 lead after they won the pistol and Aleksandr "⁠glowiing⁠" Matsievich salvaged an awkward situation in the second gunround with a 1v2. From there, though, AMKAL went on a five-round run to close the map, shutting down every execute towards the upper bombsite.