With four weeks down and one to go in the group stage phase of Pacific Stage 1, the region's 12 teams are almost done with sorting themselves into eight playoff spots. Five spots have been claimed already, with one spot open in Group Alpha and two up for grabs in Group Omega. With wins over its group's two next-best teams, BOOM Esports BOOM Esports Asia-Pacific Rank #2 dos9 Zhumagali Dastan Famouz Fikri Zaki Hamdani Shiro Hildegard Arnaldo NcSlasher Sheldon Andersen Chandra BerserX Rizkie Adla Kusuma has already claimed Group Alpha's top seed, meaning they will be one playoff win away from qualifying for Masters Toronto. Meanwhile in Group Omega, a crucial win for Rex Regum Qeon Rex Regum Qeon Asia-Pacific Rank #7 Monyet Cahya Nugraha xffero David Monangin Jemkin Maksim Batorov Kushy Bryan Carlos Setiawan crazyguy Ngô Công Anh over T1 T1 Korea Rank #1 stax Kim Gu-taek (김구택) Meteor Kim Tae-oh (김태오) Sylvan Go Young-sup (고영섭) BuZz Yu Byeong-cheol (유병철) iZu Ham Woo-ju (함우주) has given them a big upper hand in pursuit of the top seed.

Here's how the penultimate weekend of group stage matches played out:

In a high-stakes match with playoff implications, Nongshim RedForce downed Team Secret 2-0. The series saw Nongshim, the 2024 Pacific Ascension winners, continue to perform well with Duelist player Dambi back on his trademark Neon. Most impressive from them however was in-game leader Francis 's Tejo. His 41/22 scoreline placed him at the top of every major statistical category and got Nongshim to a 2-2 record — one step closer to qualifying for playoffs. With the loss, Team Secret drops to 0-4 and is eliminated from playoffs.

In a clash between Group Alpha's two alphas, Boom Esports continued to prove that their strong vein of form was no fluke. They defeated DRX 2-1, clinching the decider map of Haven after stealing away each other's map picks. Both teams had already secured playoffs in the previous week, meaning this match between two 3-0 teams was to decide the group's top seed. The series saw BeYN return to action in place of Flashback , who reportedly requested a leave of absence. BOOM fielded double Initiator comps on both maps they won, pairing NcSlasher and Shiro to pick apart DRX. They had 38 first kills to DRX's 30 in the series which, in a series that came down to a third map with a five-round deficit, could have been the deciding factor.

Since bringing on crazyguy as its new IGL, Rex Regum Qeon has looked as good as it has all season long. In a 2-1 win over T1, they were sharp and decisive. Most importantly, their roles seem to be fully defined now. Jemkin , now on full-time Duelist duty, had a server-high 60 kills in the series, including 24 in the 13-5 blowout that was the third map. The win gets RRQ one win away from clinching Group Omega's top seed, while T1 will be hoping for them to slip up next week.

One week after giving up just six rounds in a 2-0 victory, Gen.G continued its red-hot form, downing Global Esports while giving up 12 total rounds. With Sentinel player Foxy9 seemingly re-seizing his place in the starting five, sharp shooting and excellent mid-rounding made for a near effortless victory for the Korean tigers. In one moment of adversity, rookie and former Gen.G Global Academy Gen.G Global Academy Korea Rank #10 Cloudy Gu Min-jae (구민재) BENECIA Kim Jin-han (김진한) Ramgi Woo Jyun-huk (우준혁) Gnadel Han Gnadel (한그나델) seokJ Kim Seok-jae (김석재) player Ash clutched up a 1-versus-4 round to reach 11 rounds on Haven. Gen.G would not give up another round after the clutch. Gen.G clinches playoffs with the win, while GE will need a win next week.

Ash with the fadeaway to finish a 1 vs. 4.

After adding T1 Academy T1 Academy Korea Rank #6 Pkm Park Kang-min (박강민) Moothie Yoo Seung-Woo (유승우) exa Kim Lee-hwan (김이환) GangPin Chae Jung-moo (채정무) DH Kang Dong-ho (강동호) player TenTen just one day before, ZETA DIVISION swept TALON 2-0 to move one step closer to clinching a playoff spot. ZETA made it look easy, stealing away TALON's map pick of Lotus 13-4 and then working past a stellar performance from primmie on Jett to close things out 13-10. While most eyes were on TenTen, longtime ZETA player SugarZ3ro had a day to remember, logging a server-high 41 kills. On the defense side of Split, his play was a huge reason for ZETA's 4-0 run to close the map.

In a meeting between two winless teams, Paper Rex and DetonatioN FocusMe met in a do-or-die battle that went the full three maps. On their own map pick of Ascent, DFM grabbed a slim margin on the defender-sided map to win 13-11. PRX, on their Lotus, dominated from the opening defense half. By the anti-eco round of the second half, they were up 12-2, and while they did give up five rounds to DFM, they closed things out 13-7. That brought the high-stakes series to Pearl, the same map that saw DFM defeat PRX 13-1 in an elimination match during Kickoff. PRX fought past an early 4-0 DFM lead, and in the second half had to fight three straight match points to force overtime. At the end of two exchanges of OT, Paper Rex triumphed 16-14 to capture their first win of the stage and set up a must-win match to clinch playoffs against Global Esports. The win came despite DFM's Akame dropping a map-high 32 kills as part of a server-high 70-kill performance.

Paths to Playoffs

Here's a look at every team's outlook for the playoffs, and what they need to do next week to clinch a spot:

Group Alpha

  • BOOM Esports (4-0): Already clinched, clinched No. 1 seed
  • DRX (3-1): Already clinched, needs to defeat Gen.G next week for No. 2 seed
  • Gen.G (3-1): Already clinched, needs to defeat DRX next week for No. 2 seed
  • Global Esports (1-3): Needs to defeat Paper Rex next week to clinch No. 4 seed.
  • Paper Rex (1-3): Needs to defeat Global Esports next week to clinch No. 4 seed.
  • DetonatioN FocusMe (0-4): Unable to qualify for playoffs.

Group Omega

  • Rex Regum Qeon (3-1): Already clinched, needs a T1 loss or a win to clinch No. 1 seed. Results elsewhere and tiebreakers could clinch No. 2 or No. 3 seeds.
  • T1 (3-1): Already clinched, needs a RRQ loss and a win over TALON to clinch No. 1 seed. Results elsewhere and tiebreakers could clinch No. 2 or No. 3 seeds.
  • ZETA DIVISION, Nongshim RedForce, TALON (2-2): Tiebreakers and other results will influence final seeding. Wins, results elsewhere, and tiebreakers could clinch No. 2 seed for TALON or Nongshim, while losses could clinch No. 4 seed.
  • Team Secret (0-4): Unable to qualify for playoffs.

Next week's matches will be the final round in the group stage phase, and are as follows: