The first matches of the Americas Kickoff middle bracket wrapped up today, with both NA teams finding victory over their LATAM opponents. Cloud9 Cloud9 North America Rank #4 Xeppaa Erick Bach v1c Victor Truong Zellsis Jordan Montemurro penny Erik Penny OXY Francis Hoang and ENVY ENVY North America Rank #5 Eggsterr Evan Grady P0PPIN Matteo Weber Demon1 Max Mazanov Rossy Daniel Abedrabbo keznit Angelo Mori will advance to face each other in the next round of the bracket, while LEVIATÁN LEVIATÁN North America Rank #12 spike Rodrigo Lombardi blowz Guilherme Oliviera Neon Bruno Rodríguez Sato Eduardo Kenzo Nagahama Sato kiNgg Francisco Aravena PxS Josh Brunelli and KRÜ Esports KRÜ Esports Latin America South Rank #1 saadhak Matias Delipetro mwzera Leonardo Serrati silentzz Caio Morita Less Felipe de Loyola Basso Dantedeu5 Jesús Federico Larrosa drop down to face each other for potential elimination.

ENVY staves off KRÜ in 2-1 win

The first matchup of the day featured a revenge narrative. ENVY's keznit was facing off against KRÜ, his old team of five years.

ENVY got off to a slow start on map one, being overrun on defense by KRÜ, still playing with their full sub roster. KRÜ had an 8-4 lead on the half, and looked like they were on track to steadily close out the map, as they reached a 10-6 lead with their opponents on low economy. However, Inspire was able to pull off a 1v3 to get ENVY back in the map.

They rode the momentum of that clutch into three rounds in a row, closing their deficit down to just one round. Just as they were about to tie it up, KRÜ, with low economy, managed to win a thrifty, and regained control of the map. Two 3ks from infiltrator later, they had closed out the map 13-9.

ENVY quickly bounced back on Pearl, putting up a completely dominant defense half. KRÜ had no answers to their aggressive site holds as ENVY ran them down round after round. The half ended as an 11-1, which soon ended as 13-5, tying the map score up at 1-1.

On the final map of Breeze, it was KRÜ that brushed away the result of map two and got off to a 4-0 start. Big plays from keznit kept ENVY in the map, ending the half with a 5-7 score in KRÜ's favor. Moving to ENVY's defense side, however, they were dominant. Inspire was a steel bastion of a site anchor, always finding two or three kills as KRÜ entered the site. They were eventually able to close out the map 13-9 to win the series.

Cloud9 rebirths one demon to sweep Leviatán

The second match of the day saw Demon1 hit the VCT stage once more, this time subbing in for Cloud9 as they took on Leviatán. Last year, he was with Leviatán for the first half of the year before being benched after Stage 1. Today, he got his revenge as he and Cloud9 comfortably took down their opponents in a 2-0.

On map one of Pearl, Demon1 quickly reminded everyone why he was a Champions winner, as his mechanics looked as sharp as ever. Able to run loose with Chamber, his Operator play shut down any and all attacks Leviatán were going for. Him, combined with Xeppaa 's insane performance let Cloud9 sweep the first map 13-3.

After map one's stomp, Leviatán came into map two with the chance to build an early lead of their own, winning the pistol and bonus round. However, they let go of their momentum and opted to save several rounds, letting Cloud9 build up an immense economy. Their wealth led them to lead 7-5 at halftime.

Cloud9 started the second half by extending their lead to 10-5 off the back of their own pistol and bonus wins. Leviatán at last started to streak some rounds together, but their momentum was halted when a big ult round for them went the way of Cloud9 on account of spam kills from Xeppaa. From there, Cloud9 was able to close out the map 13-8.

Tomorrow will see the second round of the middle bracket, featuring 100 Thieves vs. Sentinels and ENVY vs. Cloud9.