Strife fall to Asian Powerhouse
In the opening match-up for Strife, they faced off against the TYLOO whose form recently has left much to be desired, notably missing out on the PGL Antwerp Major to IHC and Renegades. With something to prove, YuLun "Summer" Cai showed why he's been around the team for so long with a vintage 44 kills and 1.23 rating. For Strife, the loss is a tough one to swallow after looking so strong in North America. However, the international experience can only be positive for the side.
The strong performance for TYLOO started out on Overpass, this was by no means an abysmal display from Strife but more of a missed opportunity. There were many times in this match whereby it felt like Strife were so close to grasping the momentum in this game but their opponents just stole it away from them. This can be seen especially in the second half, down 9-6 at the half Strife was able to go on a run and give NA fans some hope but TYLOO was able to close it out with a few clean rounds.
Mirage was up next and Strife needed it to go their way. After the first map where it felt like they were so close to taking the game, Strife needed a strong start to get things rolling. A strong start is exactly what they got, going three rounds up straight away and playing a style of CS that TYLOO struggled to counter but just as things looked up for the North American side, it all slipped away. Zhenghao "DANK1NG" Lv took no prisoners as he put the side on his back and dropped a 1.41 rating after being the only weak link for TYLOO on the first map. The resurgence of the Chinese AWPer was the end for Strife, despite putting together rounds here and there, the NA squad looked completely outmatched and the game ended 16-10 to TYLOO.
TYLOOStrife| TYLOO |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Kelun 'SLOWLY' Sun |
44 - 37 | +7 | 96.4 | 72.2% | 1.31 |
| YuLun 'Summer' Cai |
44 - 30 | +14 | 79.9 | 68.5% | 1.23 |
 Hansel 'BnTeT' Ferdinand |
37 - 28 | +9 | 73.1 | 77.8% | 1.18 |
| Zhenghao 'DANK1NG' Lv |
35 - 29 | +6 | 70.0 | 72.2% | 1.15 |
| YuanZhang 'Attacker' Sheng |
39 - 37 | +2 | 74.6 | 70.4% | 1.06 |
| Strife |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 David 'J0LZ' Jolin |
38 - 40 | -2 | 76.6 | 64.8% | 1.05 |
 Kristjan 'fejtZ' Allsaar |
37 - 38 | -1 | 73.1 | 70.4% | 1.01 |
 Keller 'SLIGHT' Nilan |
33 - 40 | -7 | 68.6 | 68.5% | 0.88 |
| Ethan 'reck' Serrano |
24 - 41 | -17 | 57.0 | 48.1% | 0.69 |
| Bobby 'stamina' Eitrem |
27 - 41 | -14 | 54.7 | 51.9% | 0.64 |
With an unfortunate start to the event, Strife need to keep their heads up and remind themselves of how much they deserve to be here. Playing cowana nice and early at 06:30AM tomorrow, they will need to bounce back if they want to go any further.
