The Masters Toronto playoffs wrapped up its first day with a highly anticipated matchup between Sentinels Sentinels North America Rank #4 N4RRATE Marshall Massey bang Sean Bezerra Zellsis Jordan Montemurro zekken Zachary Patrone johnqt Mohamed Amine Ouarid and Xi Lai Gaming Xi Lai Gaming China Rank #2 Viva Lifan Ran (冉立凡) NoMan James Man Rarga Arthur Churyumov happywei Deng Minwei (邓闵维) coconut Colin Patrick Chung (钟弘祖) .

Sentinels dominated China's top seed in the matchup, winning 2-0 and never quite looking beatable.

Sentinels march on. (Photo by Stefan Wisnoski/Riot Games)

The series played out on Xi Lai's Sunset, Sentinels' Lotus, and the decider map of Pearl. Sentinels won both Sunset 13-6 and Lotus 13-6, making the decider map unnecessary.

The match was one of many firsts, seeing several big first steps taken on both sides of the stage in the Enercare Arena.

"Someone told me their coach tweeted it was a dream that they picked us," Zellsis said after the match. "I guess it's not a dream, it's more like a nightmare, right?"

Sentinels, after defeating Toronto's two other Chinese teams, Wolves Esports Wolves Esports China Rank #3 SiuFatBB Pong Gaa Hei (庞加曦) Yuicaw Huang Yung-chieh (黃湧傑) Spring Liu Jiunting (刘俊霆) Lysoar Liang Youhao (梁优好) Juicy Tyler James Aeria and Bilibili Gaming Bilibili Gaming China Rank #4 whzy Wang Haozhe (王昊哲) Levius Lu Yinzhong (卢胤中) rushia Wang Xiaojie (王晓杰) nephh Marcus Tan Knight Liu Yuxiang (刘宇翔) , in the Swiss stage, was picked by Xi Lai to set up the first-ever meeting between the two teams. For Xi Lai, it was the Chinese squad's first match on the international stage. Within months, the team has gone from a tier two Chinese team to the winners of China Ascension, the winners of China Stage 1, and now international debutants in Toronto. The match was also Midi 's debut for XLG, having joined earlier this month as a result of YOU 's departure.

Continuing that trend of firsts, Xi Lai's map pick of Sunset was one that turned heads. The map, one of the crown jewels of Sentinels' 2024 map pool, was one that Xi Lai had never before played in VCT. High-flying Duelist Rarga 's performance was the subject of much interest. He had the second-highest rating of all players in China Stage 1, and the highest average damage per round. While he and happywei led the way for Xi Lai on Sunset, they were no match for zekken on this particular day.

Sentinels started the match on attack, and entered halftime up 8-4. However, the most eye-catching number was zekken's 20 kills in the half.

Sentinels makes mid the operating table to dissect XLG.

zekken ended the map with 27 kills, a 1.95 rating, and an ACS of 401, miles above the next-best player in any stat.

While Xi Lai's pick of Sunset was a bold one, Sentinels' pick of Lotus was a brave one, too. The three-site, traditionally attacker-sided map has been played by Xi Lai 12 times this year, but it's been one of their best in recent times. In Stage 1, Xi Lai went 6-1 on the map. Xi Lai would have plenty of film to study, considering that Sentinels played and defeated both Wolves and BiliBili on Lotus.

The story to start the map was Rarga's struggles to get hot. Xi Lai, with a single Controller, double Initiator comp, relied on him as the spearhead of their attack, but as he faltered, so did his team. He ended the half 4/11, while XLG managed just four attacker-sided rounds.

Xi Lai had numbers and time on their side, but Zellsis was the last man standing.

"We finished the Chinese gauntlet run, and we own that region," Zellsis said with a smile.

After being swiftly eliminated in the Swiss stage of Masters Bangkok, Sentinels has bounced back to win three straight matches and advance to the upper semifinals.

They will continue on in the upper bracket to take on Pacific giants Paper Rex Paper Rex Asia-Pacific Rank #1 PatMen Patrick Mendoza Jinggg Wang Jing Jie f0rsakeN Jason Susanto d4v41 Khalish Rusyaidee something Ilya Petrov . Meanwhile, Xi Lai, just two games into its international debut, will fall to the lower bracket where it faces elimination.