HEROIC, B8 lead the eight teams qualified for CS2 Austin Major Stage 2

HEROIC and B8 won all their matches in dominant fashion to advance to Stage 2 in three rounds.

The Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 Stage 1 concluded on Saturday (7 June), as eight teams survived the Major's first of three 16-team Swiss Stages. HEROIC,B8, BetBoom Team, Nemiga Gaming, OG, Lynn Vision Gaming (LVG), Legacy, and TYLOO are the eight teams that will continue their campaigns in Stage 2 of the Austin Major.

Meanwhile, FlyQuest,Wildcard Gaming, NRG, Imperial Esports, Chinggis Warriors, Complexity Gaming, Metizport, and Fluxo failed to make it out of Stage 1, and are the first eight teams to get eliminated from the Austin Major.

Here's how all the action in Stage 1 of the Austin Major went down:

HEROIC, B8 lead eight teams qualified for Austin Major Stage 2

HEROIC and B8 were the first two teams to advance to Stage 2 of the Austin Major, after scoring victories in the first three rounds of Stage 1.

HEROIC started their campaign by taking down Chinggis Warriors (13-7 in Anubis) in round one before stomping NRG (13-5 in Dust II) in round two. HEROIC then faced FlyQuest in a best-of-three for advancement to Stage 2, claiming victory in three maps with wins in Ancient (13-7) and Mirage (13-6).

Meanwhile, B8 defeated Imperial (13-11 in Inferno) in round one and OG (13-9 in Inferno) in round two to get in position to qualify for Stage 2 in round three. B8 faced Wildcard in the round's second advancement match, with the latter taking the opening win of the series (16-13 in Train). However, B8 went on to dominate the next two maps (13-6 in Dust II, 13-2 in Inferno) to secure the reverse sweep and a clean 3-0 Stage 1 run through to Stage 2.

BetBoom, Nemiga, and OG were the next three teams to advance. BetBoom defeated Nemiga in round one (13-7 in Train) before losing to FlyQuest in round two (6-13 in Mirage). They then bounced back by routing Legacy in round three (13-3 in Anubis) and sweeping Wildcard in back-to-back overtime thrillers (19-17 in Nuke, 16-14 in Anubis) in round four.

After losing their opening match of the Major to BetBoom, Nemiga managed to right the ship and secure three straight victories to advance to Stage 2. They defeated Imperial in round two (13-9 in Train), LVG in round three (13-10 in Dust II), and swept FlyQuest in round four (13-9 in Ancient, 13-11 in Inferno).

On the other hand, OG had one of the most impressive runs in Stage 1. In their opening match, Nico “nicoodoz” Tamjidi tied the record for the highest map rating in a LAN tournament in the history of the game with an absurd 3.08 rating in a 13-3 stomp over Complexity. While OG's fiery start was cooled by B8 in the next round, they continued rolling by cruising through TYLOO (13-4 in Ancient) in round three and sweeping NRG (13-6 in Mirage, 13-3 in Nuke) in round four.

The final three teams to qualify for Stage 2 were LVG, Legacy, and TYLOO.

The fifth and final round of Stage 1 kicked off with LVG sweeping NRG. Game one in Dust II was a triple overtime thriller, where LVG overcame a 8-12 deficit to force overtime and eventually grind out a 22-20 win. NRG seemingly ran out of gas come map two in Inferno, where LVG won with a comfortable 13-8 score to advance to Stage 2.

Up next were Legacy and Wildcard, with Legacy easily securing the series sweep with a 13-10 win in Inferno and a 13-6 rout in Nuke. This result is particularly noteworthy when considering Legacy came in as a last-minute replacement for BESTIA after the latter team failed to secure visas in time.

The final match of Stage 1 then featured familiar foes in TYLOO and FlyQuest. FlyQuest won the opening game of the series at Inferno, 13-10, before TYLOO hit back with back-to-back 13-3 stomps in Mirage and Anubis to claim the final spot in Stage 2. With LVG and TYLOO both qualified for Stage 2, it's a particularly encouraging result for the future of Asian CS2. With that said, it's also a disappointing end to FlyQuest's run, as they fell short at the final hurdle after winning in the first two rounds of Stage 1.

With the conclusion of Stage 1, the competition in the Austin Major now moves to another 16-team Swiss-format slugfest in Stage 2, where eight teams will once again advance to the next stage. HEROIC, B8, BetBoom, Nemiga, OG, LVG, Legacy, and TYLOO will be joining Team Falcons, FaZe Clan, 3DMAX, Virtus.pro, paiN Gaming, FURIA Esports, MIBR, andM80 in Stage 2.

All North American Stage 1 teams fail to advance to Stage 2

With the Austin Major being the first Major to be hosted in North America since the ELEAGUE Boston Major in 2018, the long-suffering North American CS community had high hopes that one of their own could pull off a magical run in Austin just like Cloud9 did to raise the region's lone Major trophy in Boston all those years ago.

Instead, the community was left disappointed once again as all three North American teams in Stage 1 failed to make it out of Stage 2.

Complexity were initially one of the biggest favourites to advance to Stage 2 given the team's recent surge in performance in international tournaments. However, they were left massively underpowered when Håkon “Hallzerk” Fjærli was forced to miss the Austin Major due to visa issues. Despite stand-in Paytyn “Junior” Johnson's best efforts to fill the gap left ny Hallzerk's absence, Complexity were eliminated in round four by TYLOO. 

Meanwhile, Wildcard and NRG simply fell apart. Wildcard started the Major strong by winning in the first two rounds and were in position to comfortably secure a spot in Stage 2 before losing to B8 in round three. However, they faltered down the stretch in back-to-back overtime maps against BetBoom in round four, and simply looked listless against Legacy in round five.

NRG scored wins over TYLOO in round one and LVG in round three, but had a tough draw as they faced powerhouses like HEROIC in round two and OG in round four. NRG were then in a good position to still make Stage 2 in round five, but failed to convert on a 12-8 lead versus LVG in game one. Instead, they lost in triple overtime and were gassed in a backbreaking loss in game two.

Despite all three of their teams in Stage 1 already getting eliminated, there is still a sliver of hope remaining for the North American community. As one of the top-ranked teams in the Americas, M80 have been directly seeded to Stage 2 and technically have a chance to make it to Stage 3 and even the Playoffs. The odds of them doing that are astronomically low, however, when considering they will have to face the likes of Team Falcons and FaZe Clan in Stage 2 alongside the qualified teams from Stage 1.

With all that said, it's fairly safe to say that an American team, let alone an American player, won't be raising the trophy in front of their home crowd in Austin. But hey, at least North America will always have the Boston Major.

The BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 is the first CS2 Major Championship of the year. From 3 to 6 June, 32 of the best CS2 teams in the world will gather in Austin, Texas to fight across four grueling stages of competition to claim the third CS2 Major title and the lion's share of the tournament's US$1.25 million prize pool.

For everything you need to know about the BLAST.tv Austin Major, check here.