Cover Image Courtesy: Igor Bezborodov

The Asia Minor Championship Berlin 2019 kicked off today in Berlin with the eight qualified teams going at each other in the group stage. It turned out to be an exceptionally good day for Grayhound and Tyloo, as the strongest teams in their respective groups make it through to the playoffs without a hitch.

This is where the two groups stand at the end of the day,



Image Credit: Liquipedia

Group - A

Grayhound were the ones to make it past through to the playoffs from this group. They had a real easy time against their South African opponents, Energy Esports, taking them down on Dust 2 by a score of ‘16-7’.

In the winners match they were up against Avant, treating us all to an Australian derby. Despite Avant giving a tough fight to Grayhound on Overpass they seemed to have used up the entirety of their energy as they took a really bad beating on Nuke. Unable to secure even a single round while up against their countrymen, Avant faced an embarrassing ‘16-0’ defeat to go down to the decider match.

With this, Grayhound secured a place in the playoffs without losing on a single map.

Group - B

The Korean giants, MVP PK were not ready for an aggressive Alpha Red as they swept them off their feet on Train. The Thai team were in fantastic form as they caused an upset by defeating MVP by a score of ‘16-10’. It was not at all a close match as Alpha Red kept hitting the Koreans one round after the other consistently.

Foxz was on fire finishing with an overall rating of 1.62 as none of the Korean players seemed to be in form with XigN, stax and zeff finishing the game with horrible figures.



Image Credit: HLTV

Tyloo, on the other hand, stood strong against the FFAmix to claim a comfortable victory and face the excited and aggressive Thai team in the winners match.

Continuing on with the momentum Alpha hit Tyloo hard on Overpass, taking an early lead and putting Tyloo in an uncomfortable position. But with Mirage up next, Tyloo equalised the score pretty easily, breathing a sigh of relief and moving on to the decider on Train.

Having beat MVP on the map, Alpha felt good but Tyloo gave nothing away taking them down once again by a score of ‘16-9’ and moving on to the playoffs to join Grayhound.



With this, the first day of the group stage came to an end with Tyloo and Grayhound reaching the playoffs while the fight for the two remaining slots continues tomorrow.