The first day of the VCT China 2026 Stage 2 playoffs is over, with JD Gaming JD Gaming China Rank #6 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) and TYLOO TYLOO China Rank #1 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) sweeping their opponents and moving up to the upper semifinals to face one another.

After entering the playoffs with two different levels of regional form, both Nova Esports Nova Esports China Rank #3 qiutiaN Bijan Moeinzadeh (慕英毕强) cb Wang Qingchuan (王庆川) Ezeir Zhao Zejun (赵泽骏) GuanG Guang Honglin (光洪霖) swagzor Mikhail Vaniushin and Titan Esports Club Titan Esports Club China Rank #11 Haodong Guo Haodong (郭浩东) lucas Yunkun Lu (路昀昆) Dynamite Zhao Zihao (赵梓浩) ra1ny Chen Baohuan (陈葆桓) Coco Ding Dajian (丁达建) move to the lower bracket to face each other and keep one of their Champions hopes alive.

Here is a quick recap of how these two games ended:

JD Gaming upsets Nova Esports to start the playoffs

From undefeated in Stage 2 to losing to JDG, Nova started its Champions run by stumbling out of the starting gate. JDG swept Nova 2-0 to start these regional playoffs, placing them in an ideal position in the upper bracket.

The series began on Summit, which JDG chose to try to throw Nova off its game. Nova opted for the double-Duelist with Yoru, who is slowly starting to become a creative agent choice for the new map. JDG instead chose to run Neon and Raze, with the support of Omen and Fade.

Keeping up his form from the play-ins, crownfisher delivered JDG its first pistol on the attack side. A comfortable antieco round placed JDG in the lead, even as Nova stopped the bonus conversion. Both Nova Duelists started slow, with JDG clearly antistratting swagzor 's aggressive positioning on defense while pressuring cb .

Taking a timeout down 5-1, Nova managed to convert only two rounds afterward, entering the half down 9-3. Defense-side pistol now could place JDG firmly in the lead, and crownfisher once again pulled JDG to a pistol win and a commanding 10-3 lead. GuanG led a force buy and a small run to pull the game within reach, but BerLIN closed out Summit 13-9.

Map two, Split, was utter rifle-round domination from JDG. Nova ran double-Controller with Deadlock, while JDG played Neon and Waylay, with no Sentinel agents. Nova converted not just the first pistol, but the second half pistol as well. What cost them was a tough defense half from GuanG on Viper, as well as JDG converting many man disadvantages.

After going up 4-3 in the team's only lead of the entire series, Nova fell to a 7-5 deficit at the half. Winning the pistol should have led to a 7-7 tie, but round 14 is what defined the entire series in retrospect: JDG fully predicting a late hit and crownfisher dominating with cheap weaponry. That economy shift proved to be all, as JDG defeated Nova 13-7 and swept the tournament hopefuls.

TYLOO stops Titan Esports Club run with one-sided series win

Game two between TYLOO and TEC looked to be a return to form for TYLOO, while TEC ran into similar problems from the group stages.

The series began on Sunset, which TYLOO chose while running double-Sentinel with Chamber and Sage. TEC opted for the standard double-Duelist with Neon and Phoenix, which started well with a pistol round. When TYLOO earned rifles in its players' hands, the talent started to take off, winning eight rounds in a row. The Scales Sage was shining on defense, as TYLOO entered halftime up 8-4.

SiuFatBB was leading his team to victory, with a star performance on Fade. TYLOO earned the second pistol, converted the bonus, and quickly took map one 13-5.

TEC needed to bounce back on Haven, continuing to run Neon and Phoenix while TYLOO introduced a Waylay/Phoenix comp. Once again, TEC began the map with a pistol, but Erv sniped two Sheriff kills to convert the eco. TYLOO ran away with the half, up 9-3, and converted the second pistol to reach ten round wins.

A force from TEC proved to only pull together a few rounds back, as Scales and SiuFatBB ended the map 13-6 and completed the sweep.