Games of the Future 2024 Group Stage Results
The two-day Group Stage phase of the million-dollar event has been completed, with four teams eliminated already. Here's a quick recap of what happened in the event's first two days.
Group A
LGD Gaming went into Group A as the favorites, but Entity Gaming, with Yowe as a stand-in, had a chance at cracking first place.
The opening matches went as expected. LGD Gaming defeated One Move, and Entity beat Winter Bear. Both favorites didn't have much trouble and won their respective matches 2-0. The top two teams survived the Groups and have qualified for the Playoffs stage.
In the Winner's Match, Setsu and LGD could win against Entity in a 2-1 series. The games weren't too interesting, as the team that had a lead could convert their advantage into a map win. With this victory, the Chinese squad qualified for the Quarter Finals, while Entity must go through Round 1 of the Playoffs.
The Loser's Match was between Winter Bear and One Move. Though the One Move team was the slight favorite to win the series, the new roster cracked under the pressure of elimination and lost the series. All three maps were incredibly back-and-forth, but Mikey and the Winter Bear team could survive and eliminate One Move from the event.
Group B
G2.IG was the main talk of Group B, and the star-studded Chinese roster could easily finish first in the group.
Neon Esports defeated the new beastcoast lineup in their opening match to face G2.IG, who quickly dispatched Cooman's stack, ECHPO4MAK.
Though G2.IG was expected to easily win the Winner's Match against Neon Esports, but the Southeast Asian squad still put up a decent fight, winning the first map but losing the next two. G2.IG joined their Chinese brethren in the Quarter Final, but Neon has still qualified for the Playoffs.
In Group B's elimination match, beastcoast could send the unestablished Cooman stack home, who participated in the tournament just for fun. However, ECHPO4MAK somehow took a map off beastcoast, which the South Americans should not have allowed.
Group C
In Group C, Ame and Xtreme Gaming easily showed they were the best team in the group; no surprise there.
Xtreme Gaming shut down RAMZES666's new roster debut with a swift 2-0. Conversely, BOOM Esports defeated Geek Fam in a close 2-1 series.
The Chinese Titans quickly defeated BOOM Esports in two maps that didn't go past 30 minutes to book a spot in the Quarter Final.
The RAMZES666 and the L1ga Team faced Geek Fam in an elimination series. In the first map, the Filipino squad demolished the early game and forced a 17-minute GG call from the Eastern European representatives. The L1ga Team could strike back after a back-and-forth Game 2 to keep the series tied. Unfortunately, despite building an entirely new roster, the L1ga Team continued its failure and dropped the third map, resulting in elimination from the tournament.
Group D
The final group was arguably the most interesting, featuring Azure Ray, who finished top four at Dubai, and PSG Quest, who Team Falcons gatekept from qualifying to any S-Tier tournament from the MENA Qualifiers.
As expected, Azure Ray and PSG Quest won their opening matches, developing the bracket to face each other for Group D's Quarter Final spot. Surprisingly, with Dukalis as a stand-in, PSG Quest stomped the series against Azure Ray 2-0. Though this isn't the best tournament to display such a performance, there have been debates that MENA could be one of the most vital regions.
Meanwhile, Hydra and Thunder Awaken played for their tournament lives in the Loser's Match. Unfortunately, Hydra could not keep the series competitive as DarkMago's squad stomped both games in 29 and 33 minutes to send Hydra packing.
The Playoffs of Games of the Future 2024 will run from 21 to 24 February, making it a concise event. The teams are fighting for $1,000,000 in prize money, and four teams have already been eliminated.