Reviewing all the action from day one of IEM Road to Rio
The first day of qualifiers for the Road to IEM Rio had its share of surprises, including over an hour and a half of delays before the matches even began. But that aside, it was a day of upsets, underdogs, and the one favorite rolling every single opponent. Here at Dust2, we have compiled the very best from day one into a recap for you all to enjoy.
Mythic Reporn > Mythic
The first major upset of the open qualifiers came with Mythic falling to the hands of Legendary, as despite Nicholas "hate" Young's 31 kills, the stream team couldn't find their footing and fumbled their chance of qualifying in their very first map played. The salt in the wound is that Mythic Reporn, led by an outstanding performance from Josiah "JoJo" Jimenez, outlasted their namesakes and went one round further. The loss will be a sting to the ESL Challenger League level squad.
Complexity unscathed
The beauty of an open qualifier is that anything can happen. We have seen this in the European Open RMR Qualifiers whereby the first-seeded Astralis were eliminated by the 81st seed. However, in this Major's NA qualifiers, the first-seeded new-look Complexity were able to make it through the first day only losing nine total rounds. They looked dominant with Håkon "hallzerk" Fjærlilooks looking like a good fit, as in his debut game he didn't have a single death.
oNe stumble
The flip side of an open qualifier is well... anything can happen. Seed six oNe fell to 54th seed kari, an Advanced team, and not even a dominant one at that. oNe continue their streak of poor events with a close loss, but a loss nonetheless. The Brazilians were only able to pick up ten rounds against the American side as they lost out in the round of 16. However, this does mean that kari are just a few matches away from securing themselves an RMR slot, which surely must be exciting for the Advanced team.
BHOP explode
BHOP have undergone a handful of changes recently, with Peter "stanislaw" Jarguz, the creator of the original Disconnected lineup leaving, to former Bad News Bears player Christopher "Swahn" Swahn joining. With so many changes in quick succession, BHOP were not ready for DETONATE who were led to an extremely close win by a great performance from Landon "landmaz" Lawrence. The winners will now go up against heavy favourites Strife in the final round of best-of-ones.
The eight remaining squads in this first open qualifier will be narrowed down to only two by the end of the day, with the quarterfinal matches set to start soon at 06:00PM.
