9z and EG victories highlight Day 1 of IEM Road to Rio Americas RMR

Besides the Round 2 matches of European RMRs, yesterday also brought the first two rounds of IEM Road to Rio 2022 American RMR, where all eight favorites finished at the top of the leaderboard. 

The majority of Round 1 matches finished in line with the expectations, except for the meeting between 00Nation and 9z Team, which went into overtime. The second round was expectedly a bit more exciting as the best American CS:GO teams faced each other in the high bracket.

9z surprise with a victory over 00 Nation in Round 1

In the first two matches, FURIA and Imperial Esports destroyed Infinity and Isurus, without a chance, with both meetings ending with a score of 16-2, after closing the first half 13-2.

Then we saw a more or less equal game between paiN Gaming and ARCTIC which concluded with a 16-13 victory for paiN. In a parallel match, Evil Geniuses confidently defeated Nouns with a 16-7 win. Then, Complexity Gaming showed an excellent performance followed by a 16-5 victory against ATK on Vertigo.

But in parallel, the most spectacular match of the first round was taking place on Overpass, as 9z managed to return from a 13-6 score against 00NATION and bring the game into overtime. There, the South American mix managed to beat Marcelo “coldzera” David and his team with a 19-16 scoreline. 

The first matchup of the second round of American RMR brought a spectacular faceoff of FURIA and EG on Nuke. The efforts of FURIA’s star rifler Yuri “yuurih” Santos and AWPer Rafael “saffee” Costa weren’t enough to keep the team alive against the outstanding play by EG, which secured them a second win in the IEM Rio qualifying tournament. That said, FURIA didn’t give up easily, with the teams going back and forth until EG tied the score at 16-14.

Meanwhile, the parallel match between 9z and Imperial on Nuke was equal enough to go into overtime, finishing with a 22-20 victory for 9z. The following matchup of Team Liquid against MIBR too went into overtime with Liquid adding their second victory at 19-16. Complexity then easily swept paiN Gaming with a score of 16-7, concluding the high bracket of Round 2.

While the lower bracket was a little bit less thrilling when it comes to CS:GO action, it was still full of great matches that featured ATK’s 16-11 victory over Arctic and Nouns’ quick 16-2 victory over Infinity. Day 1 of American RMR concluded with 00 Nations’ and O Planos’ 16-10 victories over Isurus and oNe.

Round 3 of IEM Road to Rio American RMR, which starts today at 4 PM CEST, will see the top two teams secure their tickets to the CS:GO Major in Rio, while two teams will have to say goodbye to the competition

Header: ESL