HellRaisers, Cloud9 go 1-0 in Katowice

The match between HellRaisers and Splyce began with the European side (Counter-Terrorists) taking the pistol round, but then Splyce's B execute in a force buy restored parity once again. It took HellRaisers some time to get their economy stabilised, but once that happened they took control of proceedings and overturned the deficit.

Down 4-6, Splyce found a glimmer of hope thanks to Jason "⁠jasonR⁠" Ruchelski, who won a 1vs2 clutch to keep his team in the game. However, HellRaisers refused to let their foot off the gas and closed out the half with a 9-6 lead.

HellRaisers go 1-0 in Katowice 

In the second half, Splyce recovered a couple of rounds and twice brought the deficit to a minimum - the second time because of Arya "⁠arya⁠" Hekmat's ninja defuse -, but HellRaisers remained calm and collected, taking a 16-9 victory that potentially puts them two matches away from their first Major in over a year.

The next match pitted Cloud9 against Empire, the runner-up of the CIS Minor Championship, led by former HellRaisers member Emil "⁠kUcheR⁠" Akhundov. The North American team got off to a great start in the game, winning the pistol round and the following anti-eco, and denying Empire's third-round buy.

It was on a force buy that Empire finally managed to get a round on the board, and that round win eventually turned into a huge streak as the Russian team took a 7-3 lead. That is when Cloud9's individual talent made the difference as clutches from Tyler "⁠Skadoodle⁠" Latham and Mike "⁠shroud⁠" Grzesiek propelled the team to take an 8-7 half-time lead.

Cloud9 win first match in Poland 

Now playing on the Terrorist side, Cloud9 went on a fantastic run and won seven rounds in a row to reach match point. That was when Empire's defense finally flourished as they picked up four consecutive rounds to put a considerable amount of pressure on Cloud9's players, who, however, kept their cool and locked down the map, 16-12.