TYLOO bows out as BLAST Premier Hong Kong Rivals group stage comes to a close

There will be no Asian representation at the esports BLAST Premier Hong Kong Rivals playoff stage after the mainland Chinese Counter-Strike side TYLOO and The MongolZ of Mongolia crashed out in the group stage at AsiaWorld-Arena on Thursday.

TYLOO, the only mainland Chinese team there, needed to beat the Brazilian squad paiN Gaming to reach the playoffs, which will kick off in front of a live audience on Friday, but they were unable to come through the behind-closed-doors group stage.

It was a disappointing end to their run, with paiN taking the first map of Nuke in convincing 13-7 fashion. TYLOO did manage to level up the series on their own pick of Ancient after a massive defender side performance 13-9, but there would be heartbreak to come on the decider of Overpass.

Down 10-2 at the half, TYLOO managed to rally and drew within two rounds of levelling at 10-8, but that was as close as they would get as paiN held strong and closed out proceedings 13-10.

Meanwhile, there was huge frustration too for The MongolZ, who were also unable to make it to the arena after a 2-0 defeat to Spirit from Russia.

The MongolZ started strongly on the opening map of Dust2 and were leading the early exchanges, but the game turned into one-way traffic towards the end of the first half and Spirit ultimately stamped their class to win 13-6.

The game was closer on The MongolZ pick of Ancient, but once again after leading out the early exchanges 3-2, they were unable to sustain the momentum in a stop-start game and would come out the wrong side of a 13-10 score.