The first round of the VCT Masters London playoffs has concluded, with Xi Lai Gaming Xi Lai Gaming China Rank #2 WsLeo Huang Pinwei (黄品维) Lysoar Liang Youhao (梁优好) NoMan James Man Rarga Arthur Churyumov happywei Deng Minwei (邓闵维) pulling off the upset of the event with a 2-1 win over G2 Esports G2 Esports North America Rank #4 jawgemo Alexander Mor BABYBAY Andrej Francisty trent Trent Cairns valyn Jacob Batio leaf Nathan Orf to move on to the upper semifinals.

After meeting twice before at Masters Toronto and Masters Santiago, XLG finally got not only its first map win against G2 in this series, but its first playoff win of any kind on the international stage after Swiss Stage and Group Stage eliminations at each of the last three international events.

The series played out on Xi Lai's pick of Lotus, G2's Ascent, and the decider map of Split. G2 won Lotus 13-7, XLG won Ascent 13-4, and then went on to win Split 13-9.

Xi Lai unsurprisingly went with its trademark triple-Sentinel comp on Lotus, featuring Duelist player Rarga on Sage along with a Deadlock and a Cypher. XLG started the map on attack and began strong, winning the pistol, anti-eco, and converting the bonus to claim an early 3-0 lead. A thrifty, converted in large part thanks to BABYBAY 's Vyse setup on C, seemed to be a small hiccup for XLG en route to a 5-1 lead, but G2 quickly got a read on XLG's attack. From the braintrust of valyn and JoshRT , G2 navigated the map and its midrounds to near perfection, winning six straight rounds to enter halftime up 7-5.

leaf 's 4K is the finish on a wonderfully-played out defense of the C site.

A second pistol round win on the map helped XLG start the second half in the right direction, but G2 reversed that momentum in no time, converting an eco round with five pistols. While Xi Lai clawed back a round after re-stabilizing its economy, G2 flexed its muscle. Four straight rounds went G2's way, making for an easy 13-7 win on XLG's map pick.

Since Ascent's return to the map pool, G2 has opted for a double-Duelist look with Yoru-Phoenix, Vyse, Sova, and Astra. In this match, G2 switched out Yoru and Astra for Neon and Omen, while XLG went with Jett, Phoenix, and Cypher to complement Omen and Sova. The map began in a similar tempo to Lotus, with XLG beginning dominantly with wins through the bonus, only to lose to a low buy of several Stingers. Unlike Lotus though, that momentum was sustained by XLG, as the Chinese side stormed into halftime leading 8-4.

While defense is regarded as the stronger side of the map, XLG impressed on attack as well, effortlessly breaking down G2's defenses to shut them out of the half en route to a clean 13-4 win.

happywei pulls off the 1v2 to cap off a pivotal bonus round 4K.

XLG's win on Ascent brought the two teams to Split, a storied map for both teams. For the Chinese side, happywei's record-setting 35-kill performance on the map in a 13-11 win over Dragon Ranger Gaming Dragon Ranger Gaming China Rank #4 Flex1n Lo Rui (罗瑞) Life Qu Donghao (瞿东豪) vo0kashu Ilya Ushakov Nicc Shao Yi-qun (邵逸群) Verse Zhou Zijun (周子钧) SpiritZ1 Lin Dingyu (林定宇) was just four days in the rear view mirror. For G2, the map has been hot and cold in recent memory for G2, with a 13-3 loss and a 13-11 win to LEVIATÁN LEVIATÁN North America Rank #1 spike Rodrigo Lombardi blowz Guilherme Oliviera Neon Bruno Rodríguez Sato Eduardo Kenzo Nagahama Sato kiNgg Francisco Aravena occurring in the past month. Xi Lai opened the map with its fifth-straight pistol of the series, but struggled to get out to the fast start that it did in the previous two maps.

A back-and-forth G2 attack side saw momentum switch hands numerous times, with XLG's early 2-0 lead the largest lead held by either side in the first half. G2 entered halftime down 7-5, but moved onto defense with what could be argued as the more defense-sided comp of the two teams. The second half began with XLG claiming a sixth pistol to sweep G2 in pistols on the series and claim a 9-5 lead.

G2 shut down the would-be bonus and tallied on another round to break XLG's economy, but XLG turned the tide with a thrifty win claimed via one Stinger and four pistols. The anti-eco gave XLG a four-round cushion, and with the teams trading two rounds each over the next four rounds, margins were razor-thin. With the crowd behind its players, XLG reached match point with three opportunities to close out the map. Against DRG, converting match point took giving up four straight rounds, but against G2, a slight fake onto the A site and a four-man hit onto B was what sealed the upset.

NoMan shuts down BABYBAY 's attempt at an ace and G2's hopes in the series.

happywei was once again a strength throughout this series, recording a match-high 1.22 rating while Lysoar had a match-high 52 kills. Meanwhile, leaf and BABYBAY led the way for G2 with 43 kills each in the losing effort.

Up next

With Xi Lai and EDward Gaming EDward Gaming China Rank #1 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) 's wins, a Chinese team is now guaranteed to finish in the top three. This will be the first time a Chinese team finishes in the top three of an international event since Wolves Esports Wolves Esports China Rank #19 glacier Liang Zhekai (梁哲恺) yosemite Wang Lei (王磊) Spring Liu Jiunting (刘俊霆) Deryeon Derrick Yee aluba Zhong Haojun (钟皓钧) ' Cinderella run at Masters Toronto. A spot in the Upper Final will be earned between the two teams, while G2 falls to the lower bracket to take on one of EMEA's hottest teams. In a turn of events, China has now produced two of the four teams in the upper bracket, while two teams from EMEA and Americas each make up the lower bracket.

Masters London will continue with the following matches: