Passion UA upset Virtus.pro in RMR opener

Virtus.pro squandered a plethora of man-advantage scenarios to slip to an embarrassing opening defeat.

Passion UA have made a statement in their opening game of Perfect World Shanghai Major Europe RMR B, outlasting Virtus.pro on Mirage to steal a shocking 16-14 victory.

Virtus.pro came into this RMR as a wounded giant. Ever since adding Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov the squad have looked far short of the quality one would expect with the talent on their roster, often disjointed and seemingly unable to mesh the styles of play electroNic and Dzhami "⁠Jame⁠" Ali want from their teams. Both factors came into play in this series.

On their CT side, Virtus.pro at times looked very solid and were particularly potent in terms of openers, going 10-2 in that department. But when it came to mid-round scenarios, they fell apart, squandering a 5v2 and two 5v3 advantages to allow Passion UA to earn a tied half.

Moving over to T side, Virtus.pro were uncharacteristically one-dimensional. They repeatedly bashed their heads into a brick wall on the B site, stubbornly trying to force an execute-heavy approach towards that side of the map with little success. The few rounds they slowed it down looked much better, forcing Passion UA to think on their feet, and Virtus.pro eventually managed to limp into OT.

There, Passion UA displayed a resilience belying their inexperience. With everything on the line, Rodion "⁠fear⁠" Smyk called a timely pace-change on the T side which caught Virtus.pro off guard and allowed his team to get to match point, which they duly converted.

Much of the talk of this map will focus on Virtus.pro's shortcomings, and rightly so, but Passion UA deserve credit for capitalizing on Virtus.pro's mistakes. Eduard "⁠zeRRoFIX⁠" Petrovskyi played a fantastic CT side, Nikita "⁠jackasmo⁠" Skyba was so impactful lurking out into A on the T side, and as mentioned previously, fear's calling helped seal the deal in OT.