Aurora suffer defeat in only upset of opening round - PGL Cluj-Napoca

It was largely a good day for the big boys in Cluj-Napoca, with the exception of Aurora losing to FUT.

We've written quite a bit about FUT and their continued rise, and a result like this is a lovely one to kick off the event, even if it does lock them into a pretty scary match-up tomorrow against FURIA. dziugsss was the pick of the prospects this time around, though it does seem to vary from map to map and series to series who the most exciting young player on this team is.

Aurora traditionally have always been excellent on Anubis, and they did just about find an overtime win thanks to dual-30-bombs from woxic and XANTARES, but both were powerless to resist the rising tide of new blood in map three following that equalising map.

lauNX has proven to be a remarkably solid 'veteran', which is a very odd sentence to have to write, and picks his moments well to pop up with a game-winning performance. He was superb on Mirage and stuck to task on the next two maps, and there's few who know more about being a promising youngster and missing out than him - so he's the perfect person for these players to listen to.

For Aurora, we're a bit worried that their Krakow performance was a one-off rolling back of the clock, and we might just be back to the middling mediocrity of late 2025. We sure hope not.

The Mongolz went down 0-1 against paiN before absolutely eviscerating them on maps two and three, dropping just three rounds combined.

Mirage saw a 2.43 rating map from mzinho as he dropped a 16-3 scoreline with cobrazera trailing behind with an astounding 115 ADR, before the latter saw mzinho's 2.43/16-3 and raised him 2.61/25-3 on Dust 2, which is a frankly ridiculous scoreline.

cobrazera went 41-13 on the second two maps combined, with an ADR in the region of 125. Who needs Senzu?

It turns out you can just put anyone in Senzu's spot and bLitz will turn them into gold.

Vitality were tested pretty thoroughly by G2 even despite HeavyGod having an uncharacteristic off-day, which bodes well for G2 at least. If they can keep malbsMd in this form and bring HeavyGod into the mix, they might actually be a contender - but for now, Vitality's unstoppable march continues.

Mirage was a close affair, but Vitality have a knack of winning the rounds when they count, and they were never really in much danger of losing the decider Anubis either, but G2 pushed them closer than most teams ever do.

s1zzi's debut on B8 was encouraging following the segukawa debacle, but he was overshadowed by the daunting figure of molodoy, who as ever made the game his own. B8 were able to keep this one close, but molodoy was not losing this game.

Falcons too picked up a pretty routine win over 3DMAX, with NiKo putting up what might have been the map of the day were it not for cobrazera, dropping a 25-7 scoreline in a map that kyxsan legitimately went 3-9 in.

It wasn't even a spanking - it was 13-7, which isn't close, but it's not like it was 13-4 either.

PARIVISION went one up in the series against MOUZ, but looked toothless even on Overpass (which has always been a Jame special) and ended up falling 1-2. MOUZ are absolutely ruthless against teams who are not elite, and especially in group stages, so we didn't learn too much new about these teams, but it does seem like PARIVISION will land outside of that top 5 quite convincingly.

FaZe picked up a rare win over HEROIC, which is nice to see, quite frankly. Counter-Strike is a more fun esport when FaZe are good, and the mouth-watering prospect of a stage performance from karrigan and co. is enough for us to get on our knees and pray.

Little worrying for HEROIC, mind you.

Last but not least (every game here was pretty important in truth), NAVI were pretty comfortable in a win over Astralis, which is mildly disappointing. We were starting to believe Astralis might have some secret sauce, but getting swept aside by an under-par NAVI isn't quite what we wanted.