Day 1 of the Esports World Cup 2025 was hectic, with 12 teams thrown straight into best-of-three battles. The opening slate had a bit of everything, statement sweeps, scrappy deciders, and several upsets as dark horses swung above their weight and a couple of favorites stumbled.
The results
- Natus Vincere 1–2 3DMAX
3DMAX traded blows with NAVI and came back from a map down to take the 2nd and 3rd map to snag a surprise series win.
- GamerLegion 0–2 The MongolZ
The MongolZ set the pace from the opener and never let go, cruising to a comfortable 2–0 with bLitz boasting a crazy 1.68 rating across the two maps.
- Vitality 2–0 Liquid
If you look at the series score you might just expect a clean 2-0 from Vitality. but it was everything but that. Liquid pushed them to the edge on both maps with the first map ending 13-11 and map two ending 19-16 after double overtime.
- TYLOO 2–1 Astralis
TYLOO refused to fade after Astralis took the opening map comfortably. The Chinese team bounced back won the 2nd map cleanly and came back from a 0-7 start on Train to win 13-10 upsetting the Danes.
- FaZe 1–2 Aurora
Aurora with Xantares back for the 2nd tournament, delivered an outsanding perfomance on the last two maps 13-3 and 13-7 in favour of the Turkish side. Elige seemed to be the only FaZe player fighting back ending with a series high 1.50 rating across the three maps.
- Spirit 1–2 HEROIC
The IEM Cologne and Blast Bounty Finals winners of Team Spirit were looking to demolish Heroic. However that was not destined to happen: Heroic got humiliated on the their map pick Ancient 13-5. The next two maps however were a different story, they took Spirits map pick 13-3 and the 3rd map ended in overtime 16-14 in what is probably Zontix’ last map for Spirit.
