100 Thieves and Liquid reached the Esports World Cup Counter-Strike 2 open qualifier playoffs on August 8 without losing a map. Their progress came as the Group 9-16 matches continued in Paris.
Both teams entered the round among the favorites, and they handled their groups cleanly enough to move forward without needing a deciding map. The result keeps them in contention for one of the four places at the EWC main event.
Only four teams will qualify for the EWC main event
The EWC 2026 CS2 LCQ format put 64 teams into the open qualifier, but only four playoff survivors will qualify for the $2,000,000 tournament. That makes every clean group run especially useful, with 100 Thieves and Liquid now one step closer to the main event.
Eternal Fire and EYEBALLERS take different routes
Eternal Fire’s path was far less direct. The team lost to NADE on Friday, then received a lifeline when SadFamous forfeited its next match. That moved Eternal Fire straight into the decider, where it avenged the earlier defeat and claimed a place in the next stage.
Echo also produced one of the round’s more memorable results by defeating OG 2-1. The loss sent OG and Casper \”cadiaN\” Møller into the decider match instead of the next stage.
EYEBALLERS had to recover from a tense three-map battle against Phantom in the Group 10 winners’ match. The Swedish team won Ancient 13-11, but Phantom forced the decider with a 19-17 overtime victory on Inferno. EYEBALLERS answered on Anubis, winning 13-10 to claim the next stage and send Phantom into the decider.
With 100 Thieves and Liquid through, the qualifier’s playoff picture is beginning to take shape ahead of the EWC Counter-Strike 2 main event.
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Counter-Strike 2
Developed by Valve
Counter-Strike 2 is a free-to-play multiplayer tactical first-person shooter developed and published by Valve. Released in September 2023, it is the fifth main entry in the Counter-Strike series and serves as a direct replacement for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive on Steam. Two teams, Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists, compete in objective-based rounds across modes such as bomb defusal and hostage rescue. Built on the Source 2 engine, the game introduced volumetric smoke physics, revised weapon handling, and a new sub-tick server architecture. It inherited all cosmetic items from its predecessor and features both a map-specific Competitive mode and a numerically ranked Premier mode.
- Genre Shooter, Tactical
- Platforms Linux, PC (Microsoft Windows)
- Perspective First person
- Modes Single player, Multiplayer
- Release September 27, 2023
- Publisher Valve
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Age Rating
-
Time to Beat
- Main
- 1h
- Main + Extras
- 14h
- Completionist
- 139.8h
