With wins over HONORIS and Eternal Fire, both on Inferno, ForZe and Bad News Eagles opened the CCT Central Europe Malta Finals 1. The two winners, who entered their contests as favorites, will now play in the winners' match for Group A on Thursday at 14:15, sending the Poles and Turks to the last man standing matchup in the process.

R3salt Evgeny Frolov had a successful debut while wearing a forZe shirt. The young Russian player made a strong impression in his first LAN appearance with the Russian squad, finishing the best-of-one with a team-high 1.31 rating and a 19-10 K-D differential. A benefit the team will be looking to capitalize on throughout the $100,000 event and into their Finals, the 18-year-old stated that he “[feels] comfortable because of a weak enemy in the first round.” The team will participate in the qualifying round for the Paris Major Europe RMR tournament.

The Quick Recaps

The victory of the Bad News Eagles versus the Turkish team was Jonatan #Devilwalk Lundberg's first LAN triumph as the team's head coach. The Swedish veteran, who joined the team in late January, recently told esports media that he “believes in what they are doing” and that “there is huge potential for progress.”

The team placed second in the CCT South Europe Series 2 and is now one step closer to making a playoff appearance in Malta as a result of the 31-year-acquisition, old's but they will need to play with more precision if they are to defeat teams like ENCE and Spirit and win the trophy.

In their first LAN encounter in 2023, Eternal Fire will regret not putting on a better front. At the end of 2022, the team saw a succession of roster changes, saying goodbye to its star AWPer zgür #woxic Eker and then reuniting with Engin #MAJ3R Küpeli within the space of a month. The Turkish team currently sits outside of the top 30 after exiting the OMEN GWR Challenge 2023 in joint-last position back in January, thus the loss does little to help them break out of their apparently never-ending rut.

ForZe and HONORIS decided on the map Inferno, which had the ability to go either way on paper considering that both teams had sub-50% win percentages prior to the match. However, the Polish team got out to a faster start, going on three- and four-round streaks to jump out to an 8-7 lead before the halfway point.

Wiktor #TaZ Wojtas and company's prospects of winning were completely eliminated at the start of the second half. Withstanding all the Poles hurled at them, the Russians built a strong defensive wall during the whole phase, allowing them to go on an eight-round run all the way to the map point. HONORIS found some solace in a single round victory, but this eventually served to just make things worse as forZe doubled down in the next round to clinch a resounding 16-9 opening triumph in Malta.

In their first-round battle, the Bad News Eagles came out strong, turning around a 0-3 deficit to open the map by adding six rounds to their score to take the lead, 6-4, right away. Mer #imoRR Karataş' heroics kept the Turks somewhat in the game, fueling a three-round run at the conclusion of the half that helped the team trail by just one round, 7-8, at the break.

Now on the T-side, Eagles kept up their lead, completing their first pistol round victory to increase their lead to five rounds, 12-7. By battling back to 14 rounds, Eternal Fire was able to avoid a total blowout and assure that the map would continue, however Genc #gxx On round 30, Kolgeci pulled a 1vs3 out of his hat to eke out a 16-14 victory for his team.