SK and NTC struggle in day one of ESL One Belo Horizonte

ESL One Belo Horizonte began earlier today, and ironically the Brazilian teams attending the event are struggling on home soil.

SK Gaming and Nao Tem Como suffered losses in their initial matches to Space Soldiers and Mousesports, respectively. Their defeats were some of the main storylines of the day, while many of the other games had expected results, like FaZe Clan, Mousesports, and Team Liquid winning their opening matches.

Related: How to watch ESL One Belo Horizonte

SK had a rough time against Space Soldiers, a team who are fresh off of a championship win at DreamHack Austin. A massive choke on Cache and self-inflicted economic problems on Inferno were so costly that SK lost both maps. The Turkish side took full advantage of every SK mistake that they could in their 2-0 sweep, even with Marcelo “coldzera” David fragging out at 26 kills per map. Despite the hard loss, SK found their footing and easily crushed Ghost Gaming in the elimination match later in the day.

NTC, on the other hand, seemed somewhat unprepared for their LAN debut vs. Mousesports. The Brazilians lost their map pick Train without a decent fight, but they came alive on map two Mirage. They kept it close with Mouz until halftime, then the European side destroyed them on CT. Miikka “suNny” Kemppi was Mouz’s standout player, with an average 25 kills per map, 105.9 average damage per round and a 1.64 HLTV 2.0 rating in the series.

Group A

Initial Matches

FaZe Clan vs. Ghost Gaming

• FaZe won Overpass 16-4
• FaZe won Dust II 16-8

Space Soldiers vs. SK Gaming

• SS won Cache 16-13
• SS won Inferno 16-11

Elimination Match

SK Gaming vs. Ghost Gaming

• SK won 16-6
• SK won 16-

Group B

Initial Matches

Team Liquid vs. BIG

• Liquid won Cache 16-14
• Liquid won Inferno 16-11

Mousesports vs. Nao Tem Como

• Mouz won Train 16-3
• Mouz won Mirage 16-12

Day two of ESL One Belo Horizonte will begin tomorrow at 9am CT, featuring the Group B elimination match between NTC and BIG, which will be followed by the group decider matches. Those will include fierce fights featuring a FaZe versus SS matchup and a Liquid versus Mouz matchup.