Today marked the conclusion of the first of four RMR tournaments for the Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 in CS2 — the Asia-Pacific event. From this tournament, the first three teams have secured their spots in the second-ever Counter-Strike 2 Major. In this article, together with Harvey “skriv” Rodgers and Michael "YouM3" Cassidy, we recap the recent event.
Top Representatives of Their Region
The Mongolz, Rare Atom, and FlyQuest are currently the strongest teams in the Asia-Pacific region, and they’ll be the ones representing it at the upcoming Major. The Mongolz confidently navigated through the upper bracket and were the first to earn the coveted slot. Rare Atom qualified second, without dropping a single map.
FlyQuest’s journey was more challenging. They had to fight their way through the lower bracket after losing to TALON in their first match. However, Christopher “dexter” Nong and his team rallied to secure wins over GR Gaming, DRILLAS, and Lynn Vision Gaming.
The outcome of this championship pleases everyone. The Mongolian and Australian teams have been among the strongest in their region all year, and Rare Atom ensures Chinese CS fans have local team stickers at their home Major. A beautiful storyline!
I think these 3 are the best teams to have qualified for the region and they did ultimately play the best. The Mongolz are top of the region, FlyQuest have been working hard and Rare Atom have some Chinese legends ready to represent at the Major.Harvey “skriv” Rodgers
I am definitely satisfied, The Mongolz and Flyquest were in my opinion the clear lock-in's for the spot and Rare Atom have clearly put in the work off the server and levelled up their game. I was a bit worried about Talon and the DRILLAS taking a slot away from these three because both are new teams and it was hard to say what level they'd bring to their games. I'm very happy with this trio as it also honours the 3 main pillars of Asia-Pacific Counterstrike we had from CS:GO and now CS2 with China and Australia, with the new big force from Mongolia.Michael "YouM3" Cassidy
The big question: how far can these teams go? Harvey “skriv” Rodgers expressed doubts about the abilities of Rare Atom and FlyQuest to compete with the world’s top teams but believes The Mongolz could pull off anything.
I'll start from the bottom up. Rare Atom will probably struggle against the stronger international teams. Although deserved of their spot, they lack the experience needed to make it far (always be careful with those 0-3s folks). FlyQuest have shown the ability to compete against higher level teams at Atlanta last month and thus I think they will make it through the opening stage if they play well. The Mongolz are so capable of winning the whole thing.Harvey “skriv” Rodgers
The Mongolz - I believe this team can make it to the top 8 of the Major, they play a great game and have impeccable synergy in their setups while having the flash and firepower to back up the plays.
Rare Atom - I'm unsure, but I am not confident they will make it past the opening stage. They're a team that sometimes see inconsistencies in their fresher additions in ChildKing and L1hang, as well as kaze on the AWP, but when they find their rhythm they're a difficult team to play against. I worry that now that they'll fight stiff competition in the next stage those inconsistencies may plague them.
FlyQuest - I believe this team has what it takes to break into the top 16 of the Major. I think they're a team that trust each other to perform and they show great moments of teamplay and preparation, all while strengthening their map pool. However, I also think that they're a team that suffer heavily when 1 of their players is struggling; because of that trust I think they sometimes take too long to find ways to compensate and I think it throws off too much of the team's gameplan.Michael "YouM3" Cassidy
SPAM GORILLAS TO HELP THE DRILLAS
Initially, Vladimir “Woro2k” Veletnyuk formed a mix to participate in the qualifiers for the Asia-Pacific RMR leading to the Shanghai Major 2024. The team later partnered with streamer ohnePixel. Under the tag DRILLAS, the roster successfully made it through the open and closed qualifiers. At the RMR itself, they first defeated Lynn Vision, took a map off The Mongolz, and put up a tough fight against FlyQuest in the lower bracket. The Major spot was so close yet so far.
I think DRILLAS did play better than I expected, they just lacked that extra level that is required in the difficult moments. They nearly lost out against Lynn Vision in the opening bo1 and of course suffered a painstaking knockout at the hands of FlyQuest due to that lack of baseline approach. It felt like their game was based on out gunning and keeping things simple which worked really well at points and dropped out from under them at others.Harvey “skriv” Rodgers
They had an incredibly challenging run in this RMR, to face the Mongolz (#1) in the upper-bracket I was surprised they took a map off of them given the DRILLAS had assembled not long ago! Then also facing off against FlyQuest (#2) and played a crazy third map that genuinely could have been won by either team. They played incredibly well, but if I had to identify an area they were lacking in, was an ability to play out rounds on T side where they weren't searching for a fight at the start, and setting up in those slower rounds. Though I don't think it's realistic to expect that from them given the roster's lifespan.Michael "YouM3" Cassidy
After defeating DRILLAS, The Mongolz published a post on the club’s official Twitter, criticizing the participation of European players in the Asia-Pacific RMR. Moreover, the team has faced a large amount of backlash on social media regarding this issue. Harvey “skriv” Rodgers doesn’t blame DRILLAS, attributing the issue to Valve’s rules.
Unfortunately, I do have to agree. The DRILLAS as a team and players, backed by ohne etc are not an issue but the concept of them is the problem if that makes sense. In reality the valve rules are too vague and it does happen often in the Middle Eastern Qualifiers but this is perhaps the deepest a team has made it.Harvey “skriv” Rodgers
Personally, I supported the DRILLAS in their qualification to the RMRs and thought the project was fun and interesting. Where the problem arises is in the use of the listed substitute to replace one of the Asia region players with someone outside of it. So the Mongolz are absolutely right, the team no longer meets the requirements to compete in the region, I don't think that's controversial, it's a fact. However, I wouldn't place blame on the players or the management of the team, the rules are made to protect the organizer and the competitors from scenarios like this, and they failed to do that.
As someone that's interested in APAC CS I couldn't be mad at them competing given they were within the rules, but I can't pretend I wanted them to succeed in their campaign.Michael "YouM3" Cassidy
MVP and EVP of the Asia-Pacific RMR
The best player of the Asia-Pacific RMR, with a rating of 7.1, was Andrew “kaze” Hong. He finished the tournament with an average ADR of 92.97 and KPR of 0.86. He was the key to Rare Atom's success in reaching the Major.
Top five players close to being the best at the Asia-Pacific RMR:
The stories are always brilliant out of this region, with so few spots it means so much to the teams to make it to the major. There are some players who will never make it despite repeat attempts and some who make one or two only to not quite get it right. That FlyQuest DRILLAS 3rd map was really what it's all about. Something to behold.Harvey “skriv” Rodgers
I'd say overall given the teams we got out of it I'm satisfied with the result for the Asian RMR. If I had one wish it would have been to spread the RMRs out enough that there wasn't any overlap and could be given the full treatment.Michael "YouM3" Cassidy
The Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 will take place from November 30 to December 15 in China. Teams will compete for a $1.25 million prize pool. You can follow the Major’s news, schedule, and results at this link.
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