After a few days off, 2025's China Kickoff has returned with two lengthy battles between FunPlus Phoenix FunPlus Phoenix China Rank #9 Autumn Kale Dunne Life Qu Donghao (瞿东豪) AAAAY Zhang Yang (张杨) BerLIN Zhang Bolin (張柏霖) yosemite Wang Lei (王磊) and Titan Esports Club Titan Esports Club China Rank #19 Haodong Guo Haodong (郭浩东) Dynamite Zhao Zihao (赵梓浩) B1ack Li Songtai (李松泰) Abo Han Bohao (韩博皓) Rb Goo Sang-min (구상민) , in which the former came out on top, as well as between Bilibili Gaming Bilibili Gaming China Rank #6 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) and Xi Lai Gaming Xi Lai Gaming China Rank #3 Viva Lifan Ran (冉立凡) Rarga Arthur Churyumov happywei Deng Minwei (邓闵维) coconut Colin Patrick Chung (钟弘祖) YOU Yip Man Ho .

FunPlus Phoenix vs. Titan Esports

Titan — who finished league play in 2024 dead last — were the exact opposite of FunPlus Phoenix, a squad who only missed out on the top spot last year due to tiebreakers. They came into the new year swinging, though, picking two maps off of TYLOO TYLOO China Rank #24 5CM Ding Xuanpeng (丁宣鹏) Ninebody Ding Yi (丁毅) slowly Kelun Sun (孙科伦) hfmi0dzjc9z7 Zhang Juncheng (张峻程) Eren Yang Zhengwei (杨曾威) in their opening match. FPX, meanwhile, debuted their offseason pick yosemite in this match.

He shined in Titan's map pick of Abyss, the most contested of the match. Abyss was defined by a series of momentum swings, as each team chained its own sequence of rounds. FPX were the first to reach double digits and even climbed to 11 points, but Titan replied with five of their own to take map one 13-11.

Tejo debuted in China in the second map, Fracture, as Titan's Rb paired it with Breach and Neon for a massive frontline. FPX used a new, but fairly standard, double-smoker composition that charged Autumn 's Vyse with keeping the backlines in check.

Titan actually started out ahead in the first few rounds, but FPX's two smokers quickly annulled that ambitious frontline. By halftime, FPX were 7-5 up and, a few rounds later, they had clinched the map altogether 13-7, largely thanks to a four-round streak that opened up their attack.

Decider Pearl had FPX written all over it. Autumn & co. spread themselves over seven consecutive rounds to find an attacking-side lead, and any hopes Titan had of recovering seemed crushed when AAAAY closed out the half with a 1v4 on B.

Plain and simple outplayed.

The rest of the map was smooth sailing from thereon for FPX, who won it 13-6. Life , AAAAY, and Autumn were instrumental in taking the final map. AAAAY's +10 kill differential was the second-best of the match, bested only by B1ack 's +12 on Abyss.

FPX's 2-1 victory puts them in the upper semifinals. Should they win those, the team will still need a second win if they are to secure a spot in Thailand and return to LAN play in Bangkok.

Bilibili Gaming vs. Xi Lai Gaming

Xi Lai kicked off the year with a bang, taking a tight 2-0 win over Wolves Esports Wolves Esports China Rank #4 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 . While the wolves had a rough end to 2024, Xi Lai were about to face former international reps BLG, a seasoned LAN team who had a relatively calm offseason. In October, Bilibili dismissed Flex1n and yosemite in favor of promoting academy prospect rushia to round out their 2025 roster.

The match kicked off on Haven, Xi Lai's pick. The Ascension débutantes came out in full force, but only found a solid advantage after a stellar ace from happywei on a C-site retake. Their 7-5 halftime lead was short-lived, as BLG climbed to 11, but a late surge from Xi Lai's Rarga allowed them to clinch a 13-11 opening win.

Lotus was almost a mirror image of Haven, with a close first half followed by a dominating streak in the closing stages of the game. BLG got to map point first, but Xi Lai delayed a match tie with three lightning-quick rounds. In the final round of regulation, a strong B hold allowed Bilibili to tie up the match and trigger the decider.

Abyss was the final map left, in what would be BLG's VCT debut on the map. Xi Lai never shied away from the map since it entered the pool last year, but have a generally shaky record on it. Coming into this decider, neither team had played Abyss in the new year.

An extremely close decider was the perfect conclusion to an equally tight match, once again defined by momentum swings. Xi Lai's 8-4 halftime lead was the largest gap between the two teams in the entire match, but BLG quickly worked on closing that. Xi Lai dotted their defense with just three rounds, enabling Bilibili to complete the comeback with a 13-11 victory that pushed them into the semifinals.

Bilibili's opening win at Kickoff puts them in the upper semifinals against FunPlus Phoenix, a bout BLG haven't won since July 2023. A win in that match means they will be just one away from securing a spot in Bangkok.

That last bullet feels illegal.

Today was the first of 10 straight days of competition on the path to determine China's two Masters Bangkok representatives. Only two teams from the region will make it, the first of which still needs to win at least two more matches to reach the grand final and claim the coveted LAN slot.

Tomorrow will see the return of China overlords and current world champions EDward Gaming EDward Gaming China Rank #1 S1Mon Hsien Meng-Hsun (谢孟勋) ZmjjKK Zheng Yongkang (郑永康) nobody Wang Senxu (王森旭) CHICHOO Wan Shunzhi (万顺治) Smoggy Zhang Zhao (张钊) to the VCT stage, after a streak of murky offseason finishes.

The second round of upper quarterfinals of the VCT China Kickoff are: