Day one of the Gears Pro Circuit San Diego Open has come to a close with the top teams strolling through the competition, as the challengers fail to upset.
The final event of the Gears Pro Circuit Season 2 takes the competition to San Diego, California, and boasts a $250,000 prize pool over the course of the three-day major LAN event.
OpTic found their way back to the top of Gears at the last event San Diego, but their dominance was threatened when Ghost Gaming won the event previous, and Ghost came in as the dark horse once again.
There was little indication on day one that the favorites, OpTic, Echo Fox and Ghost Gaming would slip up, as they rolled through the competition.
In Pool A, OpTic first showed vulnerability against their Mexican counterparts, dropping a map against OpTic’s Mexico roster, although the North Americans closed it out 2-1.
They came up against Simplicity next and dropped yet another map, and were forced to a 13th round in deciding map, which really should have been won by Simplicity. with a 4v1 in Simplicity’s favor, OpTic just managed to bring it back.
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OpTic Mexico beat Simplicity in their first match up on mainstage, and it wasn’t that close, so it was surprising that Simplicity were able to put up such a fight against the tournament favorites.
In Pool B, Echo Fox faced tough tests in Rise Nation and Fire N Ice, and Rise certainly put up a fight. In a nailbiter of a match, Echo Fox had to make a huge comeback in map one, before Rise bit back. In the game 3, Echo Fox only just managed to avoid the round 13, closing it out 7-5.
Unfortunately for Fire N Ice, they seemed somewhat out of their depth in this group, and with Nimbus coming in from open bracket, it may not get any easier for them.
In Pool C, it was all Ghost Gaming. They dropped only three rounds in their opening two matches, as they simply dominated Lucent and Worlds Best. Worlds Best looked surprisingly flat, and will need to bounce back big time on Saturday if they are to make a run.
Pool D was perhaps the hardest to call, but Spacestation made it pretty straightforward in the end. They looked very strong against a tough Reciprocity roster, and eLevate struggled despite boasting a talented lineup.
Matches will resume tomorrow as the open bracket winning teams will enter each pool and vie for a top 2 spot to advance to the championship winners bracket. Judging by day one, it will be one of the top North America teams making lifting the trophy on Sunday, but there is still a long way to go.
