Global Esports Global Esports Asia-Pacific Rank #15 PatMen Patrick Mendoza UdoTan Go Kyung-won (고경원) Kr1stal Savva Fedorov xavi8k Xavier Juan Autumn Kale Dunne and DetonatioN FocusMe DetonatioN FocusMe Japan Rank #2 Meiy Ibuki Seki SSeeS Tomonori Okimura yatsuka Kazuya Ikeda Caedye Amon Mateus Okakura Akame Yu Gwang-hui (유광희) both earned sweep victories in the first two matches of the VCT Pacific 2026 Kickoff middle bracket, staying alive while sending ZETA DIVISION ZETA DIVISION Japan Rank #10 Absol Kazuki Fujinoki SyouTa Shota Aoki SugarZ3ro Shota Watanabe eKo Yeom Wang-ryong (염왕룡) Xdll Yuto Mizomori and Team Secret Team Secret Asia-Pacific Rank #171 kellyS Kelly Sedillo JessieVash Jessie Cuyco TenTen Kim Tae-young (김태영) Sylvan Go Young-sup (고영섭) BerserX Rizkie Adla Kusuma to the lower bracket.

DFM shows dominance in a sweep over Team Secret

The first match of the day, between Team Secret and DFM, was relatively quick. Team Secret picked Split, running double-Duelist with Waylay and Yoru, while DFM ran its own double-Duelist with Raze over Waylay. DFM won the first pistol, converted the bonus round, and ran away with an early lead. Starting on the defense side, plenty of DFM players were stepping up, but it was Akame who ended the first half with a 14/4/5 stat line. Team Secret were only able to win the final two rounds of the first half, ending it down 10-2.

Now, this pistol win was needed for Secret, but Caedye sniped three kills with his Ghost to effectively end the map. Even worse, DFM was able to convert the second bonus to comfortably end Split 13-2.

Next up was Bind, the map pick of DFM, and it was a closer matchup than Split. Both teams used the same composition they used on Split, but with the sole change of Brimstone over Omen in both cases. Secret started with its first pistol win of the series, and even converted the bonus round to get an early 3-0 lead. However, DFM fought back to win a big eco with a teleporter crunch to stop an incoming similar one-sided first half that they dished out against Secret on Split.

Despite some good performances from kellyS and BerserX , Akame kept up his form from map one, ending the first half with 13 kills and pulling DFM to a 7-5 lead. Secret won the second pistol, tying the game at 7-7, but soon lost the lead after failing to convert the bonus. When DFM got rifles, the attack proved to be too much for Secret to handle, with DFM ending Bind 13-8 and the series 2-0.

Global Esports defeats ZETA DIVISION after a close map one

The second match between Global Esports and ZETA DIVISION was a closer series than the previous one. ZETA chose Haven as the first map, running double-Duelist to compete against the unique Jett, Skye, and Chamber comp from Global. ZETA won the first pistol, but after failing to convert the bonus, went behind early. Autumn was frying on Jett, helping Global reach a 9-3 lead at the half.

While the defense from ZETA showed issues, winning the second pistol and moving to the attack side did wonders for the double-Duelist comp. Despite losing the bonus round, ZETA pulled together eight round wins in the ten rounds to start the second half. Both Absol and eKo were doing well, pulling the map to an 11-11 tie, but xavi8k and Autumn secured the map 13-11.

Abyss was more of the same comp from ZETA, but instead running Waylay instead of Neon. Global Esports ran solo Yoru with the Veto pick, which saw plenty of value. In the first half, Global won the pistol and jumped out to an early lead similar to Haven. Up 8-4 at the half, it was up to ZETA to show the same endurance on map two as map one. In the end, that comeback never came around thanks to some amazing plays from xavi8k as Global won Abyss 13-8 and swept the series.

With these wins, DFM and Global Esports will face each other in the next round of the middle bracket, while the two losing teams will face each other in the lower bracket for both teams' tournament lives and hopes of making it to Santiago.