Image: Perfect World Esports
Four of the seven winning teams from the European RMR A advanced to the Shanghai Major's Elimination Stage, while the rest will start in the Opening Stage.
Only seven slots remain up for grabs in the Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 as the tournament's European Regional Major Ranking (RMR) A event concluded on Wednesday (November 20).
Team Vitality, 
MOUZ, 
Natus Vincere (NAVI), 
FaZe Clan, 
Cloud9 (C9), 
Fnatic, and 
GamerLegion were the first set of European teams to qualify for the Shanghai Major. Vitality, MOUZ, NAVI, and FaZe earned direct berths to the Major's Elimination Stage while C9, Fnatic, and GamerLegion will have to start in the Opening Stage.
The Shanghai Major's European RMR A event pit 16 participating teams in a Swiss system format that saw seven teams qualify for the main tournament after earning victories in at least three rounds of matches. All the participating teams had to play through at least two best-of-one matches before advancing to the best-of-three advancement and elimination matches.
Here's how the seven qualified teams from the Shanghai Major's European RMR A earned their spots in the main tournament:
Vitality, MOUZ, NAVI lead first set of European teams qualified for Shanghai Major
Vitality and MOUZ finished in the Top 2 of the European RMR A after emerging victorious in the first three rounds.
Vitality had the best performance in the event by far, winning every single map they played and finishing with a 25-round differential. They started their campaign by defeating GamerLegion in Inferno, 13-8, in round and dominating BetBoom Team in Nuke, 13-3, in round two. The French squad then soundly swept FaZe in Mirage (13-5) and Dust II (13-11) to become the first team to qualify for the Shanghai Major's Elimination Stage.
Meanwhile, MOUZ stomped their opponents in the first two rounds, scoring back-to-back 13-3 wins over Nemiga in Inferno and Sangal in Mirage. Their round three opponents were NAVI, who claimed the first map of the series with a 13-4 win in Mirage. However, MOUZ managed to bounce back with a 13-8 win in Dust II and a 13-7 win in Inferno to become the second team qualified for the Elimination Stage.
NAVI – who defeated Fnatic (13-9 in Inferno) and Sinners (13-5 in Inferno) in the first two rounds – were quick to bounce back from their round three loss to MOUZ by sweeping SAW at Nuke (13-10) and Ancient (13-2) in round four. After winning the PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 back in March, NAVI will have the chance to win CS2's first two Major titles as they locked in a spot in the Shanghai Major's Elimination Stage.
FaZe was the fourth team to advance to the Elimination Stage from the European RMR A. They defeated C9 in Ancient, 13-8, in round one and Team Falcons in overtime at Nuke, 16-12, in round two before falling to Vitality in round three. The fourth round then saw FaZe cruise through Fnatic in Anubis (13-5) and Ancient (13-8).
That then forced a FaZe-C9 rematch in a tiebreaker for the fourth spot in the Elimination Stage. FaZe won the opening map in Mirage (13-6) but C9 bounced back in map two at Ancient (13-7) to force a deciding game three, where FaZe emerged victorious in Inferno (13-6). With FaZe claiming the final Elimination Stage slot for the European RMR A, C9 had to settle for a start in the Opening Stage.
Fnatic and GamerLegion would then claim the remaining two spots in the Shanghai Major's Opening Stage in round five. Fnatic overcame Dynamo Eclot in three maps in round five by taking map one in Ancient (13-4) and map three in Nuke in double overtime (19-17) to finish as the event's sixth seed.
Meanwhile, BetBoom swept SAW in Vertigo (13-9) and Ancient (13-9) while GamerLegion overcame SINNERS Esports in three maps with wins at Mirage (13-8) and Ancient (13-9). That then pit BetBoom against GamerLegion in one final best-of-three for the final spot in the Shanghai Major left in the European RMR A.
BetBoom scored the first map of the series in Ancient in overtime (16-12), but GamerLegion won out in Nuke (13-5) and Mirage (13-9) to snatch a spot in the Shanghai Major away from their opponents.
GamerLegion arguably had the most impressive run through the European RMR A, as they bounced back from losing in the first two rounds by winning four-straight best-of-three matches to qualify for the Shanghai Major. After falling to Vitality and Eclot in rounds one and two, GamerLegion knocked out Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev and Team Falcons, UNiTY Esports, SINNERS, and BetBoom in one grueling 2-1 slugfest after another.
Vitality, MOUZ, NAVI, and FaZe will start the Shanghai Major in the Elimination Stage. Meanwhile, C9, Fnatic, and GamerLegion will start in the Opening Stage alongside Americas RMR winners Wildcard Gaming, MIBR, Team Liquid, compLexity Gaming, paiN Gaming, Imperial Esports, and FURIA Esports as well as Asia-Pacific RMR winners The MongolZ, Rare Atom, and FlyQuest.
The Shanghai Major RMR events will continue until November 24, with the final seven spots in the tournament up for grabs in the European RMR B event. The Shanghai Major proper is set to kick off on November 30 and will conclude on December 15, with 24 teams fighting for the lion's share of $500,000 out of the $1.25 million prize pool, and a spot in the second CS2 Major championship.
