Xi Lai Gaming Xi Lai Gaming China Unranked WsLeo Huang Pinwei (黄品维) Lysoar Liang Youhao (梁优好) NoMan James Man Rarga Arthur Churyumov happywei Deng Minwei (邓闵维) defeated Dragon Ranger Gaming Dragon Ranger Gaming China Unranked Flex1n Lo Rui (罗瑞) Life Qu Donghao (瞿东豪) vo0kashu Ilya Ushakov Akeman Zhang Haoran (张浩然) Nicc Shao Yi-qun (邵逸群) SpiritZ1 Lin Dingyu (林定宇) 3-1 in the lower final of the China Stage 1 playoffs. XLG earns the right to challenge EDward Gaming EDward Gaming China Unranked ZmjjKK Zheng Yongkang (郑永康) nobody Wang Senxu (王森旭) CHICHOO Wan Shunzhi (万顺治) Smoggy Zhang Zhao (张钊) Jieni7 Zhang Juntai (张君泰) to an upper final rematch in the grand final tomorrow, while DRG is left with the regional third seed heading into Masters London.

The series kicked off on DRG's first pick of Lotus. After bringing back their patented triple-Sentinel composition at the start of playoffs with great success, XLG continued to dominate the map in this matchup with a crushing 13-2 victory. XLG did well to find the weak sites on their attacking side, setting up unbreakable postplants to go up 10-2 with the help of two major clutches from WsLeo , who topped the scoreboard with a 20/7/5 KDA and a 1.98 rating.

WsLeo converts the 1v3 C postplant to extend XLG's lead to 7-0.

XLG maintained control on Breeze. A round 2 eco for XLG quickly spiraled into an economic snowball as they forced DRG to eco four times in the half for an 8-1 lead and a 9-3 attacking half. and a clean 13-6 win. Rarga was the star of the show on Neon, finishing the map with a 25/12/4 KDA, 204 ADR, and 356 ACS.

Down 2-0, Haven was a must-win for DRG. DRG quickly seized the lead on their defense, going up 5-2 and then 9-3 with a sequence of solid site holds and retakes. Life 's Operator was a key piece as the Neon ended the half 16/7.

Life denies XLG entry to the A site with four.

A full eco for DRG in round 14 brought them to 12-5. XLG managed to make it dangerous, however, rallying back to 12-10 and forcing both DRG timeouts before DRG finally closed out the map 13-10.

While the rest of the series had been one of one-sided halves, neither team could pull away from the other on Split as the score steadily climbed from 3-3 to 4-4 to 5-5. vo0kashu and Lysoar consistently won rounds for their sides, with vo0kashu pulling off a 1v4 in the pistol and Lysoar converting clutches in round five and round 12 to give his team a 7-5 edge at halftime.

vo0kashu takes down four on his own for the clutch.

Lysoar picking up the Judge pays off in spades.

XLG extended their lead moving into the second half with a pistol, taking it to 10-6, but a thrifty in the following round gave DRG a way back into the map and they drew it back to 10-10. With the map on a knife's edge, XLG came out just slightly better, taking it 13-11 to deny a map five decider.

China Stage 1 will conclude tomorrow with a grand final match between XLG and EDG. The winner will earn the domestic trophy and the first seed at London.