Before SAW fought back with a convincing 16-6 victory on their opponent's choice of map, Nuke, the favoured side of ENCE made a great start to the series with a 16-8 triumph on Vertigo.
In the veto, ENCE took a chance by banning Overpass in the second rotation and leaving Anubis in the pool—a map with a 12% win probability for the European combo going into the match. Whether it was overconfidence or simply a desire to practise the game in an official setting, the choice did not work out as a lacklustre attacking half dealt them a fatal blow. SAW will be happy to recover from a difficult RMR campaign in which they were eliminated from the competition with a 0-3 record following losses to Virtus.MOUZ, OG, and pro. Instead of Tiago "JUST" Moura the team substituted Rafael "arrozdoce" Wing, despite the fact that the 20-year-old doesn't always put up breath-taking performances.