MOUZ, Complexity, Natus Vincere, Team Spirit go 2-0 at PGL Major Copenhagen

MOUZ, Complexity Gaming, Natus Vincere and Team Spirit emerged with identical 2-0 records after the first day of the elimination stage Thursday at the PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 event in Denmark.

Those four will face each other in high matches Friday -- MOUZ vs. Complexity and Spirit vs. Natus Vincere -- for the right to continue to press their early advantage through the upcoming rounds of the event.

MOUZ took down ECSTATIC 13-11 on Overpass and then followed that victory with a 13-11 win on Vertigo against Eternal Fire. Four players finished with positive kills-to-deaths ratios in that first match, led by Ludvig "Brollan" Brolin of Sweden at plus-8 with 21 kills. Dorian "xertioN" Berman of Israel paced the winners against Eternal at plus-10 (23 kills).

Complexity handled paiN 13-9 on Vertigo before edging HEROIC 19-17 on that same map. Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski was the star, finishing plus-6 (13 kills) against paiN before coming up even bigger against HEROIC with 37 kills (plus-17).

Natus Vincere downed The MongolZ 13-10 on Mirage and defeated G2 13-11 on Nuke. Justinas "jL" Lekavicius of Lithuania grabbed 40 kills while Valeriy "b1t" Vakhovskiy" of Ukraine totaled 37 kills on the day.

Team Spirit cruised past Cloud9 13-7 on Ancient before crushing Imperial 13-2 on Mirage. In the Cloud9 match, Myroslav "zont1x" Plakhotia of Ukraine led the winners with 18 kills (plus-7), while the pace-setter later was Danil "donk" Kryshkovets of Russia with 18 kills (plus-13).

In other first-round action, Eternal Fire defeated Vitality 13-10 on Inferno, HEROIC dumped FaZe 13-10 on Ancient, G2 blasted FURIA 13-3 on Inferno and Imperial coasted past Virtus.pro 13-6 on Inferno.

In the low matches of Round 2, Vitality defeated The MongolZ 13-9 on Nuke, Virtus.pro beat paiN 13-9 on Inferno, Cloud9 crushed ECSTATIC 13-3 on Overpass, and FaZe upended FURIA 13-7 on Ancient.

Twenty-four teams began the Counter-Strike 2 tournament, 16 of which had to go through the opening stage. Eight advanced to the elimination stage to join eight previous qualifiers. For the opening stage, which ran up until Wednesday, play is conducted using the Swiss System format.

Matches in which elimination or advancement is on the line are best-of-three. All others are best-of-one. When moving on to the next round, teams don't play an opponent that they have already faced.

Elimination-stage action runs through Sunday using the same format as the opening stage, the Swiss System, with best-of-three elimination and advancement matches and best-of-one matches in any other scenario.

Playoffs are scheduled for March 28-31. Eight teams will battle in a single-elimination bracket, where all matches are best-of-three.

The elimination stage continues Friday with Round 3 matches:

High matches:

--MOUZ vs. Complexity Gaming

--Team Spirit vs. Natus Vincere

Mid matches:

--G2 Esports vs. Cloud9

--HEROIC vs. Virtus.pro

--Eternal Fire vs. FaZe Clan

--Imperial Esports vs. Vitality

Low matches:

--paiN Gaming vs. The MongolZ

--ECSTATIC vs. FURIA Esports

Elimination standings (match record, round differential):

1. Team Spirit, 2-0, plus-17

2. MOUZ, 2-0, plus-4

3. Complexity Gaming, 2-0, plus-6

4. Natus Vincere, 2-0, plus-5

5. HEROIC, 1-1, plus-1

6. Eternal Fire, 1-1, plus-1

7. Imperial Esports, 1-1, minus-4

8. G2 Esports, 1-1, plus-8

9. Cloud9, 1-1, plus-4

10. FaZe Clan, 1-1, plus-3

11. Team Vitality, 1-1, plus-1

12. Virtus.pro, 1-1, minus-3

13. ECSTATIC, 0-2, minus-12

14. paiN Gaming, 0-2, minus-8

15. The MongolZ, 0-2, minus-7

16. FURIA Esports, 0-2, minus-16

PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 prize pool:

1. $500,000, 3,500 BLAST Premier points, qualification to BLAST Premier World Final, qualification to Esports World Cup 2024

2. $170,000, 2,750 BLAST Premier points

3-4. $80,000, 1,775 BLAST Premier points

5-8. $45,000, 1,050 BLAST Premier points

9-11. $20,000

12-14. $20,000

15-16. $20,000

17-19. $10,000

20-22. $10,000

23-24. $10,000