ENCE and Gods Reign first out at Skyesports Masters 2024

Counter-Strike

April 10, 2024

Daniel Morris

We’re three days into the Skyesports Masters 2024, one of the biggest online CS2 tournaments of the year. We’ve seen a few favorites emerge, and a couple of teams already eliminated. Let’s recap the key points of the online action so far!

ENCE and Gods Reign are sent packing

Credit: ENCE on X.

Shockingly, ENCE, the highest-ranked team at the Skyesports Masters 2024, were the first team to be eliminated from the tournament. We had them comfortable favorites to win the entire thing, but swift defeats to FORZE and OG ensured they were out before the tournament ever really got going. They’ll be disappointed with their work here, representing a good opportunity for a solid tournament win. Still, it’s back to the drawing board for ENCE.

They were joined in elimination by Gods Reign, who fell to both Ninjas in Pyjamas and BIG. Ultimately, the jump in quality was just too much to handle for the Indian roster, but there’s no shame in losing to two of the better teams in the tournament. It’d be awesome to see Gods Reign at a bigger LAN in the future, and hopefully, they see these losses as great learning experiences going forward.

Aurora and NIP Upper Bracket favorites

Credit: NIPCS on X.

Over in the Upper Bracket of the Skyesports Masters 2024, elimination isn’t quite on the cards yet for a few teams. However, we want to hone in on Ninjas in Pyjamas and Aurora, two of the favorites left in the tournament.

Ninjas in Pyjamas got off to a winning start against Gods Reign, only dropping six rounds across two maps. What is so impressive about NIP right now is that maxster is newly promoted from the academy roster, BluePho3nix is a temporary call-up, and r1nkle is a brand-new signing from B8. Despite this, they look a completely cohesive team, and while it remains to see if their long-term woes have been solved, we’d certainly consider them a favorite at the Skyesports Masters 2024.

For Aurora, we’ve been surprised by the firepower on display here. Beating OG 2:0 in the opening match was no small feat, thanks in large to the recent addition of r3salt. His signing from FORZE had added a ton of fragging output to this roster, and we think it could put them in good stead to make a Grand Final run at the Skyesports Masters 2024. They’re playing a ton of online qualifiers at the moment, too, ensuring they come into every match warm.