The first two teams have been eliminated from the Champions Tour 2024: China Kickoff after Nova Esports Nova Esports China Rank #10 o0o0o Ye Xiaodong (叶晓东) OBONE Chen Yijie (陈怡洁) SWERL Ali Kobraee CB Wang Qingchuan (王庆川) Ezeir Zhao Zejun (赵泽骏) GuanG Guang Honglin (光洪霖) topped TYLOO TYLOO China Rank #15 Ninebody Ding Yi (丁毅) coldfish Pengzhi Xiang (向鹏志) hfmi0dzjc9z7 Zhang Juncheng (张峻程) Eren Yang Zhengwei (杨曾威) and JDG Esports JDG Esports China Rank #8 YHchen Chen Yuhan (陳昱瀚) stew Park Young-chan (박영찬) Viva Lifan Ran (冉立凡) jkuro Yong Haochong (杨浩聪) Z1yan Liu Zihan (刘紫涵) sword9 Li Wei (李卫) bested All Gamers All Gamers China Rank #17 player Kevin Yang (杨凯文) bunt Jiang He (姜河) monk Wang Haoyu (王浩宇) deLb Delbert Tanoto Spitfires Xin Mingyan (辛明阳) K1ra Huang Zhihao (黄志豪) X3B Zhang Chongtian (张丛天) .

Both matches ended 2-0, although three of the day's four maps went a full 24 rounds.

Nova Esports and JD Gaming now get to fight another day for a chance to make the play-ins that could be either team's ticket to the four-team playoff to decide the China Kickoff champions.

TYLOO and All Gamers, meanwhile, are the first two teams in the tournament to suffer elimination.

Nova Esports outlasts TYLOO in a close 2-0

TYLOO began the day with an Ascent pick and an opening half on defense, a promising setup to open the day considering the map's defensive tilt.

They used that potential early advantage to score the first three rounds, appearing to give themselves the early momentum. That was not the case in reality, however, as Nova rebounded for five consecutive rounds that they turned into an early 7-5 lead by halftime.

TYLOO eventually fought back to a 10-10 tie during their attacking half, setting up for a close final few rounds to decide the map. Nova gave themselves a 12-11 advantage, which they soon converted into victory in just about the closest possible manner any team could manage.

The attacking TYLOO squad executed onto B-site late into the final round, giving themselves less than 20 seconds to win the round and force overtime. Their hit seemed successful as they built a numbers advantage over Nova.

With two seconds remaining in the round, TYLOO had a 4v2 advantage over Nova while LuoK1ng attempted to stick the plant. TYLOO's hfmi0dzjc9z7 killed OBONE , but he and his team secured things just a tick too late. LuoK1ng didn't complete his plant until after time expired and Ninebody eliminated Nova's final survivor, GuanG , moments after the clock hit zero.

TYLOO would have liked to have given themselves one more second on that site hit.

Nova carried the momentum from that victory into Split to again build an early lead, eventually building themself a five-round cushion with a 10-5 lead. TYLOO fought back to bring things within one at 12-11, but Nova seemed to have had enough of letting the match drag out at this point.

PangH rushed out of Garage with his Showstopper ultimate out the moment the round 24 started. He chased down the attackers, missing his ultimate on them, before managing a quick two kills with his Spectre. His teammates quickly collapsed on the TYLOO players herded toward them by the Raze ultimate, making it 5v1 seconds into the start of the round. It was only a matter of time before Nova found AAK and sealed up the match in their favor.

Nova had no interest in relying on the clock to win another map.

Despite winning 2-0, Nova trailed TYLOO in kills by two over the course of the match and TYLOO's Ninebody had the highest ACS in the match.

Nova Esports advances to the decider round of the group stage, where they will play the loser of Trace Esports and FunPlus Phoenix. Their decider match is scheduled for Feb. 26.

JD Gaming defeat All Gamers 2-0

The next match started similarly as the first — the team that picked the first map and opened by winning the pistol ultimately fell short to their opponents. This time, that unfortunate team was All Gamers, who had picked Icebox and took the first two rounds of the game.

In another echo of the opening match, JD Gaming turned their fortunes around with victories in five straight rounds to enter the second half with a 7-5 lead. The back-and-forth nature of that subsequent half ultimately worked in JD's advantage, who turned a 7-5 into a 13-11 victory.

And, to further illustrate the parallels between the day's first match and its second, All Gamers lost the map despite building a significant advantage in kills. All Gamers earned nine more kills than JD, largely off the back of a 28-16 performance from bunt on Viper.

The next map, Sunset, finally parted from the day's trends. It started close enough; JD and All Gamers regularly traded rounds and entered halftime tied 6-6. All Gamers even managed to take a small lead by winning the first two rounds of the second half.

But those two rounds were the last All Gamers would win at the VCT China Kickoff.

JD won the next seven rounds, completely shutting down All Gamer's offense to pull away for an easy victory. They, too, appeared to have no interest in winning the match off of the timer, as MarT1n pushed out of A site to get a 4K and wipe All Gamers in the early seconds of round 24.

That's just the kind of half it was for All Gamers.

For once, the scoreboard was dominated by the winning team. Viva led the server on Sunset with a 20-7 KD, and not a single member of his team finished with a negative kill difference. Their dominant performance was enough to give them a healthy lead in kills across the entire match, finishing +15 between the two maps.

JD Gaming, like Nova, will play in a decider match on Feb. 26. Their match will be against the losers of a bout between Titan Esports Club and Dragon Ranger Gaming.