Image: Perfect World Esports
Team Liquid, GamerLegion, The MongolZ, and FlyQuest are now one more win away from advancing to the Elimination Stage.
The Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 finally kicked off on Saturday (November 30) with its Opening Stage. In this stage, 16 teams will be battling it out in a Swiss system format across five rounds and four days of competition to be among the eight teams that will advance to the Elimination Stage.
The first day of the Opening Stage featured the first two rounds, where 
Team Liquid, 
GamerLegion, 
The MongolZ, and 
FlyQuest all won their first two matches to kick off their campaign for an Elimination Stage spot in earnest.
Here's how all the action in day one of the CS2 Perfect World Shanghai Major Opening Stage went down:
Liquid, GamerLegion, The MongolZ, and FlyQuest start 2-0
Liquid were arguably the biggest favourites to come out of the Swiss Stage, and they are off to a promising start. In round one, Liquid came back from a 3-9 first half deficit to take a 13-10 win over 
Cloud9 in Ancient before taking down 
Wildcard Gaming, 13-10 in Inferno, in round two.
Another strong contender in GamerLegion also had a flying start, which came at the expense of two of the four Brazilian squads in the Opening Stage. GamerLegion kicked things off with a 13-8 win in Vertigo over 
FURIA Esports then defeated 
paiN Gaming, 13-10 in Nuke, to finish the day up 2-0.
The MongolZ took prime position for an Elimination Stage spot after they dominated home team 
Rare Atom, 13-2 in Anubis, and trounced 
MIBR, 13-6 in Ancient. Meanwhile, Australian squad FlyQuest were arguably the biggest standouts of the day after scoring comfortable victories over more favoured teams in 
Complexity Gaming (13-6 in Anubis) and 
BIG (13-5 in Nuke).
Liquid, GamerLegion, The MongolZ, and FlyQuest will next play in the round three Advancement Matches, with Liquid taking on FlyQuest while GamerLegion will face off against The MongolZ. The winners of those matches will claim the first two spots in the Elimination Stage while the losers will have another chance to advance in round four.
Eight teams to split first two rounds, four go winless
Eight teams ended up splitting their first two matches of the Opening Stage, namely BIG, MIBR, FURIA, paiN, Cloud9, Wildcard, 
Virtus.pro, and 
Passion UA.
BIG, MIBR, paiN, and Wildcard notably won their first round matches against Passion UA, Virtus.pro, 
Imperial Esports, and 
Fnatic. However, they would fall in the second round – BIG lost to FlyQuest, MIBR were trounced by The MongolZ, paiN were defeated by GamerLegion, and Wildcard got beaten by Liquid.
Meanwhile, FURIA, Cloud9, Virtus.pro, and Passion UA managed to bounce back from their round one losses by taking crucial wins in round two against Imperial, Fnatic, Rare Atom, and Complexity, respectively.
The eight teams that finished day one with 1-1 scores have been seeded into pivotal mid seed matches in round three. BIG will be taking on VP, MIBR will face Passion UA, FURIA will be up against Wildcard, and paiN are set to fight Cloud9.
The winners of the aforementioned matches will advance to round four as the high seeds and will face the losers of the high seed round three Advancement Matches. Meanwhile, the losers will be playing in Elimination Matches in round four against the winners of the round three Elimination Matches.
However, four teams – namely Complexity, Fnatic, Rare Atom, and Imperial – all went winless through the first two rounds and are at risk of an early exit from the Shanghai Major. Those four teams will next play in the round three Elimination Matches for their tournament lives, with Complexity taking on Imperial and Fnatic facing Rare Atom.
The CS2 Perfect World Shanghai Major is the second-ever Major Championship for CS2 and will feature 24 of the best teams from all across the globe gunning for the lion's share of a $1.25 million prize pool, as well as the prestigious right to be called CS2 Major champions. The tournament is split into three distinct stages: the Opening Stage from November 30 to December 3, the Elimination Stage from December 5 to 8, and the Playoff Stage from December 12 to 15.
For everything you need to know about the CS2 Perfect World Shanghai Major, check here.
