The MongolZ and FaZe Clan were among six teams recording Round 1 sweeps Friday as action began at the $1.25 million PGL Cluj-Napoca event in Romania.
Sixteen teams are competing in the Counter-Strike 2 competition, with the winner of the Feb. 23 grand final taking home $400,000.
MOUZ, Team Falcons, Eternal Fire and Wildcard also recorded 2-0 sweeps in Round 1 of the group stage (Swiss System format), while 3DMAX and paiN Gaming opened with 2-1 victories.
Rounds 2-5 will be seeded using the Buchholz system and the teams’ initial seeds. All matches in the group stage are best-of-3, with the top eight advancing to the single-elimination playoffs. The grand final will be best-of-5.
Friday’s most decisive sweep belonged to Eternal Fire, which defeated Imperial Female 13-5 on Mirage and 13-4 on Nuke. Ozgur “woxic” Eker of Turkey led EF with 33 kills and a plus-21 kills-to-deaths differential.
MOUZ swept BIG, FaZe swept SAW, Falcons swept FlyQuest, MongolZ swept Complexity and Wildcard swept MIBR. 3DMAX defeated Virtus.pro 2-1 and paiN Gaming beat Astralis by the same score.
Eight matches are on Saturday’s schedule:
–Round 2 High Matches: MOUZ vs. 3DMAX, The MongolZ vs. Wildcard, FaZe Clan vs. Eternal Fire, Falcons vs. paiN
–Round 2 Low Matches: BIG vs. FlyQuest, Complexity vs. Virtus.pro, MIBR vs. Imperial Female, SAW vs. Astralis
–Field Level Media
