Eternal Fire and Falcons sent to elimination pool, TYLOO out after EPL Stage 2 day three

Liquid edged past the Turks in the 1-1 pool after nearly dropping 9-2 and 10-4 leads on Inferno and Train.

The third day of ESL Pro League Season 21 Stage 2 featured the first playoff qualification matches — with Spirit and Vitality going 3-0 to advance — and two elimination matches, where TYLOO and MIBR had their campaigns in Sweden brought to an end.

TYLOO eliminated, m0NESY grabs insane Scout ace against SAW

G2 made light work of SAW in the 1-1 pool thanks to strong showings from Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov, Mario "⁠malbsMd⁠" Samayoa, and Nikita "⁠HeavyGod⁠" Martynenko, with the Russian phenom grabbing the highlight clip of the day with a Scout ace.

Clip: m0NESY grabs insane Scout ace

Meanwhile, TYLOO had their Pro League campaign brought to a tragic end in the 0-2 pool, fighting back from an immense deficit on Ancient against GamerLegion to lead 15-12 before losing in double overtime.

The Chinese side then lost Inferno in triple overtime to bow out of the event, with Dongkai "⁠Jee⁠" Ji telling HLTV just how much it hurt to go out in that fashion.

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Jee: "It's really painful to lose in such a fashion"

Falcons and Eternal Fire in danger

Two of the top-eight-ranked teams in Stage 2 are staring down the barrel of elimination heading into day four.

Falcons were sailing high upon arriving in Sweden after finishing second at PGL Cluj-Napoca, marking the start of a turnaround from a downtrodden year for the organization after adding Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač.

That seemed to carry into EPL with two overtime map wins netting them a 2-1 victory over Liquid, but a one-sided defeat to MOUZ and a three-map series loss to 3DMAX has cast them down to the 1-2 elimination pool.

The French team has positioned themselves as gatekeepers to tier two and are no pushovers, but the fashion in which they decimated Falcons on the Dust2 decider (13-2) should be cause for concern for NiKo's side as they now look to avoid an early exit.

Eternal Fire had also lost to 3DMAX in their Pro League opener and are left in the same position as Falcons heading into day four after losing two close maps to Liquid.

Clip: Liquid give up B in 4v2 to let Eternal Fire force second OT

The Turks showed tenacity and capitalized on several mistakes from Liquid to recover from 2-9 and 4-10 deficits on Inferno and Train, but couldn't complete the comeback on either map despite forcing double overtime on the latter.

NAVI and Liquid debut on Train

That series was the first time we saw Liquid in action on Train, with Roland "⁠ultimate⁠" Tomkowiak shining on the defense to put his team 8-4 up.

A flat offense meant Liquid couldn't close out in regulation, however, with Ali "⁠Wicadia⁠" Haydar Yalçın repeatedly punishing pushes out of A Main and Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken needing to step up in overtime to get things over the line.

Natus Vincere also suffered in their Train debut against paiN, but for the Copenhagen Major champions it was the CT side that left a lot to be desired.

They were bailed out by an exceptional map from Ihor "⁠w0nderful⁠" Zhdanov, who tallied a 31-18 K-D, 11 multi-kills, and 1.49 rating to snag his team a 16-14 victory before they ran away with Mirage to close the series.