The home squad thrived in a historic moment in front of the home crowd to survive another day.
Pick ‘Ems players the world over saw their diamond dreams recede further as the tournament’s lowest seed, Rare Atom, secured a victory in their elimination match against fnatic, sending them home after three straight defeats and no victories at the Perfect World Shanghai Major.
It was a historic moment at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Convention Center when Rare Atom won the final round on the Vertigo decider, as they became the first Chinese team to win a Major match in front of their home crowd.
The last time a Chinese team won a best-of-three series at a Major was at the FACEIT Major in London, in 2018, when HaoWen “somebody” Xu’s TYLOO beat Spirit to qualify for the New Legends Stage (now named Elimination Stage).
YuLun “Summer” Cai and company came out with a bang, going 8-1 on Ancient before crumbling to the Europeans and letting their massive lead slip, to lose 10-13 and start the match on the back foot.
It wasn’t looking great on Inferno for the hometown heroes, who went down 0-6 on the attack, but a brilliant performance by Major rookie Junhao “ChildKing” Peng powered RA to a 6-6, after which they went on to tie the series, 13-10.
fnatic then folded on Vertigo, where Rare Atom were in the driver’s seat throughout. A 6-1 start turned into an 8-4 half and a clean T side gave way to RA’s 2-1 victory.
Rare Atom will play another elimination match in the 1-2 pool, and the crowd will once again get to cheer the local squad on at least one more day.
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