The third round of the China Kickoff lower bracket has concluded. TYLOO TYLOO China Rank #2 splash Moses Christophe Jonathan Scales Zhang Zhen (张震) Erv Shen Zhiwei slowly Kelun Sun (孙科伦) SiuFatBB Pong Gaa Hei (庞加曦) xihe Peng Wenbo (彭文博) and EDward Gaming EDward Gaming China Rank #4 ZmjjKK Zheng Yongkang (郑永康) nobody Wang Senxu (王森旭) CHICHOO Wan Shunzhi (万顺治) Jieni7 Zhang Juntai (张君泰) stew Park Young-chan (박영찬) have emerged as the survivors, with TYLOO defeating Trace Esports Trace Esports China Rank #13 LuoK1ng Zhang Zhanpeng (张展鹏) Kai Lu Zhinan (卢智楠) FengF Song Xuefeng (宋学锋) FKEY Ke Chen deLb Delbert Tanoto in a contentious 2-0 and EDG outdoing JD Gaming JD Gaming China Rank #7 jkuro Yong Haochong (杨浩聪) zhe Niu Zhe (牛哲) Yuicaw Huang Yung-chieh (黃湧傑) crownfisher Li Ao (李翱) BerLIN Zhang Bolin (張柏霖) 2-1.

TYLOO eliminates Trace Esports in overtime 2-0

Previously, Trace commanded the head-to-head record between the two teams 4-1. But TYLOO had risen through the regional ranks while Trace declined over the course of the 2025 season, leading to TYLOO winning their most recent encounter last year.

The series opened on TYLOO's pick of Haven, which was a classic Neon-Viper mirror match. sword9 led TYLOO to an early 6-0 lead as the Sova player collected 12 kills in six rounds. TYLOO constantly found their way onto sites as the attackers, winning nine out of 10 postplants for a 9-3 lead at the half.

A pistol and a bonus for TYLOO gave them a staggering 12-3 lead. Trace pulled it back somewhat with fast site hits, but with such a slim margin for error, a 4K from Scales eventually sealed the map 13-7.

Scales finds four to put an end to Haven.

Trace took the second map to Abyss. Both teams fielded Waylay and Yoru but shied away from double-Controller, as Trace went for Sova and Breach and TYLOO went for a Veto pick.

The entire map was a tight race. In the first half, TYLOO held a slight 7-5 lead primarily off the back of entries and multikills from splash on Waylay, but Trace answered back once they had built up their ultimates, using them in tandem to coordinate overwhelming retakes.

splash opens and closes the round with a 4K.

Trace took a solid lead into the second half with a pistol and bonus, stringing together six rounds in a row to open up an 11-7 lead and then 12-9. Pushed to the edge, the members of TYLOO came alive, with Erv and Scales putting together multikills to force overtime.

TYLOO's coaching staff chose to take a timeout before the overtime rounds began, and that decision paid off. slowly found an Operator double kill in the final round after a quiet map of mainly rifling to win the map 14-12. splash finished the map and series at the top of the standings, picking up 27 of his 44 total kills and six of his eight total first kills on Abyss.

EDG puts JDG away in 2-1 series

Coming into this match, EDG looked to recover after a rough loss to Bilibili Gaming Bilibili Gaming China Rank #8 whzy Wang Haozhe (王昊哲) rushia Wang Xiaojie (王晓杰) nephh Marcus Tan yilai Gu Yiming (顾依铭) Knight Liu Yuxiang (刘宇翔) bud Yang Renyu (杨韧余) FT Yan Shuaibo (闫帅博) , while JDG sought to carry on their run through the lower bracket. EDG ultimately maintained their supremacy over JDG with a 2-1 victory, as the main EDG roster continues to be undefeated against the now-eliminated JDG.

Abyss was the first map, with both teams continuing to opt into their own double-Duelist looks. EDG had a strong 5-1 start on their attack, but stew made an impact on Waylay in the last two rounds of the half as JDG fought back to a close 7-5 that slightly favored EDG.

The second half was anything but close. After losing a second pistol round, JDG were unable to get anything going on their own attack, running headlong into EDG's defensive setups as EDG ran away to a 13-6 victory. cb in particular posed major problems for his opponents as he put up 21 kills and 300 ACS in the map.

A spraydown from cb shuts down the A hit.

Haven was equally one-sided in the opposite direction. In another double-Duelist contest, zhe and stew ran rampant, with the former finding constant early picks with scoped weapons and rifles and the latter running rings around EDG with multikills as Neon. A 9-3 half plus a second pistol round proved too much for EDG to come back from as JDG won the map 13-6. zhe and stew ended with 20 and 17 kills respectively, while jkuro on Omen also held the line with 18 kills.

stew runs it down A Long and mows down EDG.

Corrode was the decider. Playing the map for the first time, EDG debuted a highly unorthodox composition featuring Yoru, Phoenix, and Sage.

However, it was the two other members of the team, Smoggy on Astra and nobody on Fade, who stood out the most. nobody won his side early momentum with a 1v3 clutch in the round two eco, while Smoggy on was a killing machine, racking up 27 kills and 402 ACS in a 13-5 stomp to win EDG the series.

A gauntlet still awaits TYLOO and EDG if they hope to qualify for Masters Santiago, starting with one another; the two squads will return tomorrow, February 6 for the next lower bracket round, each needing three consecutive wins in the span of four days to make it to the global stage.

China Kickoff will return tomorrow with the following matches: