The EMEA Kickoff middle bracket continued today with GIANTX GIANTX Europe Rank #5 Cloud Kirill Nehozhin grubinho Grzegorz Ryczko westside Miłosz Duda Flickless Karel Maeckelbergh ara Hanceriuc Eduard-George and Team Heretics Team Heretics Europe Rank #3 Wo0t Mert Alkan RieNs Enes Ecirli benjyfishy Benjamin David Fish ComeBack Berkcan Şentürk Boo Ričardas Lukaševičius finding their first wins of the event after losing their opening matches last week. GIANTX scraped by PCIFIC Esports PCIFIC Esports Europe Rank #53 al0rante Felix Brandl cNed Mehmet Yağız İpek qpert Mateja Mijovic NINJA Patryk Koczyba seven Johann Hernandez in a close 2-1, while Heretics defeated ULF Esports ULF Esports Europe Rank #7 audaz Soner Ekiz d3mur Demir Boğa sturNN Eren Oduncular nekky Anıl Dağdeviren Favian Enes Yiğiter 2-0 to send them down to the lower bracket.

GIANTX staves off PCIFIC in close scrap

The first match of the day pitted GIANTX against PCIFIC after both teams suffered losses to Gentle Mates Gentle Mates Europe Rank #8 starxo Patryk Kopczynski bipo Taranvir Singh marteen Martin Pátek GLYPH Conner Garcia Minny Patrik Hušek and BBL Esports BBL Esports Europe Rank #2 Crewen Ali Eren Sargin Lar0k Yusuf Kaan Kanber Loita Utku Kart Rosé Eren Erzan lovers rock Umut Pekdoğan respectively.

The first map was PCIFIC's pick of Abyss. Although they defeated BBL on the map last week, GIANTX proved to be harder to handle as they snowballed an early bonus round conversion into a dominant 9-3 defensive half. ara demonstrated an impressive performance with the Operator and the rifle with 17 kills on Waylay.

PCIFIC won the second pistol round, but their way back in was quickly sealed as GIANTX won an eco round with five Classics to go up 10-4 and then 12-4. PCIFIC put together a few more rounds by shutting down their opponent's Mid split attempts, but a 2v4 postplant from the Tejo-Breach combination of Cloud and Flickless won GIANTX the map 13-8. ara ended the map at the top of the scoreboard with a 21/14/2 KDA and a 1.40 rating.

For the second map, GIANTX opted for Bind despite not winning a single defense round in their previous showing against Gentle Mates. This time, however, the attack proved to be the more challenging side for them thanks to seven bringing out EMEA's first Veto pick, as his fast rotations using the Crosscut teleports allowed PCIFIC to reinforce the A site consistently. All three of GIANTX's round wins outside of the pistol came from B hits as PCIFIC ended the half up 7-5.

In the second half, PCIFIC's solo Yoru and Veto composition had a difficult time getting out onto the sites, allowing GIANTX to seize the initiative and get up to match point at 12-8. PCIFIC managed to come back and force overtime, with the final round of regulation featuring seven's Interceptor denying ara's Showstopper. With the momentum on their side, PCIFIC won in overtime and closed out Bind 14-12.

Split was the decider, with both teams continuing to favor double-Initiator looks. GIANTX started strong with a pistol to take a 5-1 lead, but PCIFIC ground things back to 6-6. Although he had a quiet map overall, the in-game leader qpert made an impact, winning a 1v2 in round 12 and a 1v1 in round 13 to give his team the final pistol. A bonus round right after meant a 10-6 lead for PCIFIC.

In the face of losing another potential upset, GIANTX kept their cool. The team streaked seven rounds in a row all the way to a 13-10 victory, cleanly shutting the door wherever PCIFIC tried to go. Cloud led by example as Skye with 23 kills and 201 ADR, going 67/52/24 over the course of the series.

Team Heretics sweeps ULF to progress in middle bracket

Expectations for the second match of the day strongly favored Heretics in spite of their loss to Natus Vincere Natus Vincere Europe Rank #11 sociablEE Volkan Yonal Filu Dawid Czarnecki Shao Andrey Kiprsky Ruxic Uğur Güç hiro Emirhan Kat after ULF with two stand-ins had been battered by Team Vitality Team Vitality Europe Rank #4 Jamppi Elias Olkkonen PROFEK Dawid Święć Derke Nikita Sirmitev Chronicle Timofey Khromov Sayonara Ștefan Mîtcu . The players on ULF put up a better fight than before, but Heretics still won out 2-0.

ULF selected Haven for the first map. Heretics, having excelled on the map historically, got off to a roaring 9-0 start on their attack. benjyfishy dominated as Cypher, going 16/2 in the first seven rounds.

The individuals of ULF began to fight back, with a 3K from audaz and a 4K from d3mur netting the Turkish squad their first two rounds. They then won the pistol and the bonus in the second half, winning seven consecutive rounds to make things dangerous for Heretics.

ComeBack broke the opponent's streak after a Heretics timeout with a Neon ultimate 4K. From there, Heretics stabilized, taking advantage of their early lead to close out Haven 13-7.

The next map was Bind, where Heretics made a compositional swap to Fade and Gekko after debuting with Raze and Yoru last week. ULF came out of the gates swinging, taking confident peeks and winning duels for an early 5-1 lead.

Heretics forced their way back into the half with a Viper's Pit low buy win in the next round, going to 5-2. A 2v4 from Boo and ComeBack later on where they combined the Brimstone and Waylay ultimates swung things back their way, leading to a 6-6 half.

ULF won a second pistol round to go up 8-6, but Heretics stayed in control for the rest of the map with stable retakes and site holds for a 13-8 victory. ComeBack was the headliner for his side as the solo Duelist, going 22/13/3 with eight first bloods and 280 ACS.

GIANTX and Heretics will face each other in the next round of the middle bracket on Friday, Jan. 30. The Ascension teams in PCIFIC and ULF go down to the lower bracket and will battle to survive elimination next week on Feb. 3.

EMEA Kickoff returns tomorrow with upper bracket showdowns:

• Natus Vincere vs. Gentle Mates (Upper Round 3)
• BBL Esports vs. Team Vitality (Upper Round 3)