Favorites prevail in first day of second ESL Challenger Anaheim 2022 qualifier
The first day of the second ESL Challenger Anaheim 2022 Open Qualifier has come to a close, with heavyweights Party Astronauts and Bad News Bears again making their way to the second day of the qualifier, joined by some new faces.
While Premier sides ultimately came out on top on the first day of this qualifier, there were some who struggled and nearly missed out on participating in the second day. The first and second rounds were relatively free of these close matches, but there were some exceptions, such as Triumph's match up against Devin "AtomiK" Ferell's mix-team Debauchery Tea Party in the second round, where Triumph managed to edge out a laborious 19-16 victory.
The third round of matches was much closer than those of the previous two. ATK narrowly defeated fellow Premier team ONET4P, and Eros came out on top with a 19-15 scoreline against DETONATE. Despite their hiccups in the second round, Triumph were able to move past Advanced team Unjustified with a solid score of 16-7.
Other matches of note in the third round included ChocoCheck securing a 16-10 win over Levitate, and Strife taking out Northern Forces 16-11. Additionally, RBG locked in their spot in the second day of the qualifier with a convincing victory over InControl with a 16-6 scoreline.
Favorites Bad News Bears and Party Astronauts had no troubles in the third round of play, with the Bears crushing Malice 16-3 and the Astronauts besting Soham "valens" Chowdhury's PNEUMA 16-5.
With the first day of the second open qualifier now complete, the day two matchups are:
 Bad News Bears |
vs. |  ATK |
| RBG |
vs. | ChocoCheck |
| Triumph |
vs. | Strife |
| Party Astronauts |
vs. | Eros |
The second day of matches just kicked off at 6:00 PM EST, and will see one additional team advance to the Closed Qualifier.
