The Japanese fairytale has come to an end — OpTic Gaming eliminates ZETA DIVISION and will have a rematch against LOUD

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On April 23, the penultimate match of the maiden major LAN of 2022 – VCT 2022 Stage 1 Masters - Reykjavik was held. Despite the hopes of fans, the dark horse`s magical run on this tournament came to an end. A breathtaking thriller Reykjavik is approaching its culmination, as the first out of two remaining matches was played. Japanese newcomers had a high-hopes of getting into grand finals, but OpTic wrapped it up.

At first, it seemed like ZETA DIVISION will make it work by taking the first five rounds in a row on Haven and even claiming the first half with a 7:5 score. But after two timeouts, OpTic Gaming managed to pull an overwhelming comeback in attack – 12:12 and made it to the overtime. MVP of the match was decided long before it finished, Marved from OpTic showed outstanding performance with KDA rate 2.6 and 4 clutches in the bag.

A hard battle was ahead for ZETA as they had picked Fracture for the second map. In the upper bracket final, OpTic outperformed LOUD on the map with the score of 13:2. ZETA took the lead with a pistol round, but OpTic didn`t let them increase the gap. The first half was all about smart moves and almost impeccable defense from the American team and so it all ended with a score 7:5 in OpTic’s favor. The second half turned into a complete nightmare for the Japanese as OpTic smashed their defense 13:5 and were coming for a matchpoint in this bo5 series.

Battle on the third map took place on Bind. The start of the map was far from ZETA’s dreams as they were losing 1:4 after the first 5 rounds. In round 6 it seemed that ZETA would get on the rails, but Marved once again shattered their hopes by making an excellent ace. OpTic got ahead in the first half with a 8:4 score. Troubles didn't mean to stop for the Japanese, as OpTic took a maiden pistol round in the first half. ZETA asked for a timeout, but it didn't bring any tremendous changes for the course of the battle. The Japanese were fighting fiercely, but OpTic outmatched its opponent and finished the deal. OpTic Gaming crawled back to the grand finals, where they will try to get their revenge on furious Brazilians from LOUD. 

ZETA DIVISION finished their fantastic run in this tournament. It didn't end up the way they hoped for, but young Japanese made a big statement about their strength and conquered the hearts of thousands of fans back in their homeland.

The seventh day of VCT playoffs kept a general tendency of record-setting up. More than 2.3 million hours watched were clocked up on channels of VCT broadcast in the four and a half hours of airtime. The number of Peak Viewers was almost 800K, which is a new record for this tournament. It outscored the previous record holder – OpTic vs. LOUD match for 20K viewers. Peak viewers on Japanese streams was renewed as well – 379K. 

There is only match left – Grand Finals of the VCT Stage 1 Reykjavik will take part on 24th of April. The game will start at 7 PM CET. The winner will take $200K and 750 VCT points. You can follow the results and viewership statistics on the tournament page.