Favorites prevail after day one

Yesterday was a hectic day of Counter-Strike, as North America's second open qualifier for the IEM Rio RMR kicked off. When the dust settled, most of the favorites found themselves with a place in the quarterfinals, with some claiming their spot in the second day with a bit more difficulty than the rest.

With a hundred sides signed up for the second qualifier, teams were certainly in for a long day. Most of the top domestic squads fared well in their opening matchups, but there were some that showed negative signs early on. The most notable of these games that raised concern was Brazen's opener against X13, in which the fifth-highest seed eventually overcame X13, but only after a strenuous game that went all thirty rounds before they came out on top. Other notable results early on in the qualifier include CLG Red getting upset by MERCENARI-OS in their first match, while Victorum moved past top Advanced squad Take Flyte.

Top teams continued their march forward into the Round of 32, with Evil Geniuses obliterating their opponents Magic Light 16-1, timberman moving past Team DNA 16-5, and Strife besting Cyberstorm 16-6. The final set of matches of the day is where things began to get hairy for some of the favorites. Evil Geniuses squared off against Limitless, a team that shouldn't be ignored considering their impressive lineup. While Evil Geniuses started the match in the driver's seat, things soon fell apart in the second half, with the game ultimately getting dragged into overtime. Timothy "autimatic" Ta was forced to put up a phenomenal 1.84 rating to ultimately overcome Limitless 19-17, locking in the top-seeded team for the second day.

timbermen's final match of the first day also required some effort, as Detonate kept the side honest throughout their bout on Overpass. In the end though, Damian "droid" Boulware and company took down Detonate 16-11 to lock in a place in the quarterfinals. While Evil Geniuses and timbermen had some difficulties in their matches, most of the other favorites hardly broke a sweat in the Round of 16, with oNe thrasing Northern Forces 16-3, ATK stamping out Unjustified 16-5, and Strife smothering Victorum with a 16-3 scoreline.

With all these matches said and done, we now have our eight remaining teams who will begin duking it out later today. Today's quarterfinal matches are:

These eight squads will each be hoping to secure one of the two highly coveted spots available for the IEM Rio Americas RMR up for grabs in this qualifier. These quarterfinal matches will commence later this evening, at 06:00PM. Be sure to keep tabs on our Twitch channel when the games kick off so that you can enjoy our live coverage of these all-important matches!