After just one day off, VCT China Kickoff returned to the stage for seven straight days of action as the country prepares for the Lunar New Year. The day started in the lower bracket with two Masters attendees from 2025 duking it out, ending with Trace Esports Trace Esports China Rank #8 LuoK1ng Zhang Zhanpeng (张展鹏) Kai Lu Zhinan (卢智楠) FengF Song Xuefeng (宋学锋) Viva Lifan Ran (冉立凡) deLb Delbert Tanoto sending Wolves Esports Wolves Esports China Rank #12 SiuFatBB Pong Gaa Hei (庞加曦) jowa Jordan Wang yosemite Wang Lei (王磊) Spring Liu Jiunting (刘俊霆) qiutiaN Bijan Moeinzadeh (慕英毕强) home in three maps. The second match of the day was between Dragon Ranger Gaming Dragon Ranger Gaming China Rank #4 Flex1n Lo Rui (罗瑞) vo0kashu Ilya Ushakov Akeman Zhang Haoran (张浩然) Nicc Shao Yi-qun (邵逸群) SpiritZ1 Lin Dingyu (林定宇) and TYLOO TYLOO China Rank #6 splash Moses Christophe Jonathan Scales Zhang Zhen (张震) Erv Shen Zhiwei sword9 Li Wei (李卫) slowly Kelun Sun (孙科伦) , which saw the latter pull off a near-upset against the Champions attendees in a back-and-forth three-map series.

Trace sends the pack home, downs Wolves in three-map series

In 2024 and 2025, Wolves and Trace both spent time as one of the "best of the rest" in China. Trace enjoyed a strong end to 2024, qualifying for Champions Seoul and finishing in the playoffs of the event, and continuing that momentum into 2025 with a Masters Bangkok appearance. Trace disappointed in Stage 1 while Wolves had a breakout campaign to qualify for Masters Toronto, where they finished third.

The series opened on Trace's pick of Abyss. Both teams opted for the Yoru-Waylay 'mosquito comp' Duelist pairing, but made different choices in the agents rounding out their respective comps. Both teams went with Astra and Sova, but Trace opted for FengF on Breach while Wolves had yosemite on Veto.

Early on, Wolves looked to disrupt Trace. After losing the opening pistol round, a five-man force-buy of Stingers ended unsuccessfully. After settling its economy, Wolves settled into a groove, ending its attack half up 7-5. Trace opened the second half with another 3-0 run, but soon after ran into trouble. The Trace attack was often found fighting against the clock, unable to time its executions with players being picked off away from the rest of the team.

While Trace hit match point first in a race to the finish line, Wolves refused to go down thanks to the performance of yosemite, who dropped a map-high 30 kills en route to a 14-12 win.

Who else but SiuFatBB to wrap things up for Wolves on Abyss?

Wolves' pick of Bind looked to make the series a quick one; in VCT play, Trace had not won on Bind since Kickoff of last year. Wolves entered the map winning four of the opening five rounds, but only managed six total rounds by the time their attack half finished. Trace's proactivity was its Achilles' Heel on defense, but on attack, it became its strength. While it failed to convert its bonus following a pistol round win, Trace won five straight rounds from an 8-8 deadlock to cruise to a map win, carrying all of the momentum into the decider map.

While Wolves opted to keep qiutiaN on Chamber heading into Split, Trace went for a double-Duelist look, with FengF on Raze and Kai on Neon. After playing Yoru on both of the previous maps, Kai exploded on Split, leading the way on Trace's attack half with an 18/6 scoreline. More importantly, though, his 8-1 record in first duels was key to opening up the map for Trace, who never looked down on Split.

While Wolves did their best to stage a late comeback, the distance to close was far too much, giving way to Kai and deLb , who combined for 42 kills on the map, to close out a 13-6 win.

Kai's last of many kills was the last of the series.

Kai's 62 kills across all three maps were the highest of all players in the match, while Trace IGL Viva 's 1.25 rating was second to none.

Dragon Ranger Gaming shakes off early rust to send TYLOO to the lower bracket

The second series of the day moved up to the middle bracket, where Ascenson winners Dragon Ranger Gaming ended TYLOO's middle bracket run, sending them to the lower bracket to advance to the middle bracket's semifinals.

The series opened on DRG's pick of Corrode. While TYLOO had what could be described as a more meta double-Duelist, double-Controller comp, DRG went with an off-meta variation of the Omen-Viper pairing with Gekko and Cypher.

Beginning on defense, DRG appeared well-equipped to shut down TYLOO's Duelist pair, winning the first four rounds and showcasing a strong showing on defense, with more momentum rolling once SpiritZ1 got an Operator in his hands. He and vo0kashu both had 12 kills apiece on

Up 8-4, DRG won the opening pistol round of its attack half, but disaster struck as TYLOO claimed an anti-eco. From there, the experienced DRG squad showed signs of imperfections, with mistakes and lapses in decision-making sending ultimates to waste and chipping away at its economy round after round. Two timeouts could only delay the inevitable for DRG, as TYLOO handed DRG its first loss on Corrode since Stage 2 of last year.

Once TYLOO got on defense, it was easy. They finished the map in flawless fashion.

slowly and Scales had a map-high 24 and 22 kills on the map, while Erv and global ACS leader splash heated up on defense to help TYLOO steal away DRG's map pick.

Following the trend of the previous series, TYLOO's map pick of Split was heavily attack-sided. DRG, starting on attack, appeared to flush any memory of Corrode rather quickly, breaking out to an early 8-0 lead, making it tough for the TYLOO economy to gather funds to put an Operator into slowly's hands. Facing a 9-3 halftime deficit, TYLOO managed to flip a force-buy into a round win, but that only delayed the inevitable as DRG convincingly won Split 13-6.

The decider map of Pearl promised intrigue, as it was set to be the first time that DRG played on the map in 2026. While TYLOO went with a double-Duelist comp with Killjoy, Astra, and Sova, DRG again opted for a more off-meta comp, with Phoenix and Tejo deployed alongside Neon, Vyse, and Astra.

TYLOO, backed by the ever-dangerous Splash, charged forward on attack, claiming the first four rounds of the map to force an early timeout from DRG head coach NaThanD . The timeout resulted in DRG finding its answer on defense, playing with a greater sense of togetherness, walking into retakes with stronger numbers, and using vo0kashu's Vyse utility to shut down TYLOO's faster executes. DRG went on a run of five straight rounds, and after starting the map in sloppy fashion, entered halftime up 7-5.

While both teams flexed their own strengths in the post plant, with Killjoy and Tejo the prime suspects, what proved to be the difference was vo0kashu's Vyse Razorvines, which were effective in shutting down any fast-flood retakes that TYLOO wanted to use. DRG got out to a 4-0 run to start its attack side, reaching an 11-5 lead to put TYLOO on the ropes.

slowly found impact with his Operator the following round, but with DRG reaching match point soon after, the map was closed at a comfortable 13-6.

DRG overwhelms the B site to reach match point.

Nicc 's 50 kills led the way in what could be regarded as a well-rounded performance in the DRG win, as SpiritZ1 and vo0kashu added 49 and 46 of their own. For TYLOO, Scales' game-high marks of 1.60 rating and 52 kills were not enough at the end of the day.

Up next

DRG extends its run in Kickoff's middle bracket, where a blockbuster matchup against either Bilibili Gaming Bilibili Gaming China Rank #3 whzy Wang Haozhe (王昊哲) rushia Wang Xiaojie (王晓杰) nephh Marcus Tan Knight Liu Yuxiang (刘宇翔) bud Yang Renyu (杨韧余) or EDward Gaming EDward Gaming China Rank #2 ZmjjKK Zheng Yongkang (郑永康) nobody Wang Senxu (王森旭) CHICHOO Wan Shunzhi (万顺治) cb Wang Qingchuan (王庆川) Smoggy Zhang Zhao (张钊) awaits them. While Wolves Esports will see out the rest of the competition from the sidelines, Trace lives to fight on another day in the lower bracket, now slated to play against TYLOO.

VCT China Kickoff will continue with the following matches: