The Recap - EP23

by OnlyJoshinTV

Welcome to The Recap, a new weekly content series covering Counter-Strike in the ANZ region with a touch of global action here and there. We aim to provide a regular series covering our region, from ESEA Open, ECL, and global events, to local LAN and online tournaments hosted here at home.

The Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 Asia and Americas RMR

The Perfect World Shanghai Majors 2024 RMRs will kick off this week.

We have two Australian teams FlyQuest and Talon in the Asia RMR, and we have jks playing for Team Liquid in the Americas RMR.  

The Asia RMR

FlyQuest and Talon are ready and waiting to show the world what they can muster. Aussie CS2 fans are just hoping that we can secure two slots for the Shanghai Major. However, fate has a sense of humour as FlyQuest and Talon are lined up against each other in the first round.

The bracket for the Asia RMR is below:

Image via Liquipedia

The Mongolz and FlyQuest are the favourites to secure a spot in the upper bracket, but it is a case of “who knows” in the lower bracket. Both teams are coming off massive overseas events victories at Thunderpick and ESL Challenger Atlanta respectively.

Meanwhile, other Aussie fans are hoping that Talon will nab the third spot, but analysts and journalists are saying otherwise.

In this week’s Geographically Challenged, Elfish and Bleh expected Rare Atom to secure the third spot while Pilski stated that DRILLAS would take it.

On my episode of Joshin-Strike this week, Napster from Vantage Navy said Talon would make it to the Major while Jeffery “Mnmzzz” Moore and myself said it would be Rare Atom. Mnmzzz mentioned that he didn’t have high hopes for Talon going into the Asia RMR and I tend to agree with him. Talon hasn’t performed well against mid-tier two European opposition which is where DRILLAS, Rare Atom, and Lynn Vision sit.

Pilski said it best that Talon’s benchmark would be not finishing 0-2 and beating GR in a Bo3. I suspect this would be the case, and it would be a big bonus if they made the major.

The Americas RMR

The Americas RMR is well known for unlikely teams making it and one of the guaranteed teams to either choke or make it look incredibly difficult to secure a major spot.

You can check all the last three to four Americas RMRs where either Team Liquid, Complexity, or MIBR miss the major and some minor teams like Fluxo fluke their way in.

Jks is one of these guaranteed teams in Team Liquid, but form isn’t on their side; they came last at the recent BLAST Premier World Finals even despite 13-0’ing champions G2.

I should mention that they were literally taking on the best teams in the world and the Americas RMR is a bit of a step down compared to it.

We do expect Team Liquid to make the major and we will at least have an Australian in the major, unlike the previous major where there were no Ausies at all.

The Americas RMR will operate under a 16-team Swiss system as per below

Image via Liquipedia

I am a bit worried about Liquid’s first match-up against Wildcard. Wildcard upset M80 at ESL Challenger Atlanta which came completely out of left field and, well, they could do the same to Liquid. I’m sure the FlyQuest boys can give jks the inside scoop on how to deal with Wildcard though!

It is a bit of a shorter recap this week, but you’ll receive an absolute feast of CS2 matches over the next few weeks. Let’s just simply lock in and enjoy the festivities.

Elfish, Mac, and yours truly are committed to providing an Aussie broadcast for all the Asia, Americas, and European RMR action. You can check us all out at our respective streams over on Twitch!