Brazilian teams shine on day one of ESEA Winter Cash Cup 6

The first day of the ESEA Winter Cash Cup 6 has come to a close, setting up today's semifinal matches. MIBR will be tussling with paiN, while Orgless will be looking to take down the mix-team Valors 2 on the other side of the bracket. The four remaining squads will all be doing their best to claim the lion's share of the event's $15,000 prize pool.

With most teams receiving a bye in the first round of the bracket, things only started to pick up in the second round. Quite a few Advanced teams had their runs ended early in this round, with Omega being brushed aside by SHIFT 16-4 while Fourth Quarter was narrowly defeated by Dalton "doltn" Ehler's boyfriend_peek3 19-16. Kinship also made their exit from the event in this round, after a 16-13 loss to Bag n Bozos.

While ECL teams did a good job making their way to the third round, quite a few of them would not be making it any further. Gaimin Gladiators, debuting with new addition Otto "garfield" Netteberg in place of Anthony "CLASIA" Kearney, were taken down 16-8 by Valors 2, a mix-team consisting of four of the Valors players who qualified for ECL thanks to a strong showing in Season 39 of Advanced. Carpe Diem also saw their run cut short after a close 19-17 defeat at the hands of Unjustified.

Valors 2 continued their solid run in this event with a 16-9 win over InControl, while oNe edged out Mythic 16-14 to claim a spot in the quarterfinals. Orgless and paiN both thrashed their opposition, tearing apart Eros and ONET4P, respectively.

The first quarterfinal saw Strife, in their first event without Danny "cxzi" Strzelczyk, falter 16-8 to Orgless, while Valors 2 sent Third Impact packing with a 16-8 scoreline to put together the first semifinal matchup. On the other side of the bracket, paiN inched past oNe 16-12 as MIBR narrowly beat ATK 16-13 to set up a second Brazilian derby in the semifinals.

The remaining matches will be played in a BO3 format, with the semifinals set to be:

The second day of Cash Cup will pick up later today, with the semifinals slated to start at 04:00PM, with the last four teams each looking to walk away with the $9,000 grand prize.