Cover image source: @PMCO
It was absolute carnage on day 1 of the PMCO Spring Split Prelims as Chinese squad, X-Quest Force showed up hungry, picking up 3 chicken dinners in 6 maps amassing a total of 61 kills as well. Thailand’s Purple Mood Esports finish day 1 in second place by finishing in the top 4 consistently including 1 Chicken Dinner.
Indian teams struggled to keep up with the pace and tenacity that their Asian counterparts offered and the ping disadvantage certainly didn’t help either. While their rotations and positioning where nowhere as good as some of the other teams, both teams played aggressively and actively hunted for kills not allowing the higher ping to affect their style.
Team Secret were a big letdown as they made quite a few costly errors and some incredibly bizarre decisions and they are struggling in the bottom half of the table. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Nova Monster Shield sits in 3rd place on the table after 1 chicken dinner, but there is very little separating the teams who sit between 4th and 8th at the moment.
Winner - X-Quest Force
It was absolute domination from the 2 Chinese teams as XQF and TES took 1st and 2nd positions along with 18 kills between the 2 teams. Team Secret were the 1st team to be eliminated much to everyone’s surprise but they were able to get 3 kills. Indian Tigers were able to get into a respectable 5th place finish but the pace of Sanhok and the position of the circle were too unfavourable for them. TeamIND meanwhile were caught taking an early fight which would never work out as they were playing with a massive ping disadvantage.
Winner - Nova Monster Shield
Both Indian teams started well with IND taking Military base and Indian Tigers establishing control over Pochinki. IND got two great opening picks on Korean team Team TOP but northern shifts in the circle made positioning very hard for eastern and southern teams. Teams like Nova Monster Shield occupied a compound near Shelter and the game eventually finished on them, allowing them to rack up a Chicken Dinner. This compound was in fact hotly contested by many squads, but the open fields around it allowed NVM to hold onto it quite easily. Just to make things interesting, the two Chinese teams dropped out early, which means that the table was thrown wide open.
Winner - X-Quest Force
Once again it was XQF who came out on top, as they had control on the high ground in the last circle. Southern circles can often be the undoing of even the strongest teams in Miramar, but XQF had their bases covered, as they were able to deal with the wonky circle shifts that caught out other teams off-guard. Too many teams were caught edge camping the circle and gatekeeping only to have the same happen to them in the next phase.
Winner - X-Quest Force
The Chinese side set a bold claim to their top 5 spot with their 3rd Chicken Dinner on day 1 and they have looked absolutely unbeatable at the Prelims. This time on Erangel, it would boil down to a Military base finish and XQF held onto some coveted real estate to claim the win. The 2 Indian squads fought early as TeamIND knocked out Indian Tigers, but the penultimate circle claimed the lives of as many as 5 squads leaving Team TOP in an unwinnable 2v4 against the mighty Chinese squad.
Winner - Pittsburgh Knights
Vikendi was always going to be an x-factor among the maps since it has had the least amount of competitive play on it. To top it off, the circle was extremely weird, stick to the north-eastern coast eliminating most of the south and west of the map, which includes some off the more popular areas. The last showdown involved a NA vs SA showdown as the Pittsburgh Knights were able to take their first dinner of the day against Team Queso. However the most interesting play was the last placed squad, Kurd squad being able to take down table toppers, XQF.
Winner - Purple Mood E-sport
Erangel is slowly becoming XQF’s iron wall and although the Chinese team weren’t able to get the dinner, they picked up 14 kills and placed in the top 3. It was Thailand’s Purple Mood Esports who finally got their first Chicken Dinner after winning a clutch fight with TOP Esports in the end. Both Indian teams were caught while rotating, quite early on and never really had the positioning or the firepower to make it work.
Day 2 should provide some different approaches by teams as they will have time to study and understand their opponents but its unlikely that XQF and PLM are dropped from the top 5. The rest of the 3 spots are open for the taking but quite a few teams are in line to fight for them once day 2 kicks off.
Find out which 5 teams will make it to the PMCO Spring Split Global Finals and stay updated with all the updates and recaps by following AFK Gaming - Mobile Esports.
