This is a good spot for 9z to remind everyone why they entered the tournament as one of the favorites. Their opening loss to EYEBALLERS took me off-guard, but they responded exactly how you’d want by comfortably taking care of SINNERS. More importantly, dgt, luchov, and max all looked much closer to the level they showed during the Cologne Major.

3DMAX, meanwhile, have been a difficult team to figure out. They started the event by upsetting NiP, only to get completely destroyed by EYEBALLERS the following day. That’s been the story of this roster for a while now – capable of pulling off big wins, but struggling to keep that level from match to match.

A best-of-one always leaves room for surprises, but 9z simply have the higher ceiling. If their stars show up the way they did against SINNERS, they should have enough firepower to move into the 2-1 pool.