On day two of the $2,000,000 ALGS Championship in Raleigh on Friday, the group stage of the tournament concluded and bracket play began. That meant that the top 20 teams in the tournament earned berths to the winners bracket and a well-deserved break, while the bottom 20 were forced to fight for survival in a losers bracket. By the end of the day, ten teams had been eliminated from the tournament. Many of them were duos, forced to play without full rosters after the original players tested positive for Covid. But PULVEREX, a Japanese team who were playing as a duo, managed to squeeze by on placement points and lived to fight another day, becoming crowd favorites in the process.
The day on the stadium stage in PNC Arena early Friday afternoon began with fans chanting “TSM!” and waving the team’s flag. The much-loved North American squad notched a victory in their first game with great positioning in the endgame, and won its last crucial moments thanks to some late-game dancing from ImperialHal and Verhulst.
