The tournament marked the final event of the 25th edition of the large-scale festival Esports World Cup 2025. Along with a $1.25 million prize, participants also competed for points in the overall EWC 2025 standings, where a record-breaking $70.45 million prize pool was at stake! In this 1xBet review, we’ll share the most exciting tournament highlights.
First round
The opening day brought the first upsets: 3DMAX eliminated last year’s winners NAVI, while HEROIC defeated the current world ranking leader, Team Spirit! Born to Win mentioned a lack of teamwork, while Spirit blamed fatigue and illness affecting three squad members.
Interestingly, HEROIC was playing with a young talent, Alkaren, who was loaned from Team Spirit Academy. Another standout in the match was tN1R. Rumor has it that he will replace rifler zont1x in Spirit’s main roster after this tournament.
FaZe Clan’s loss to Aurora (1-2) is hard to call a sensation – the teams are roughly equal in strength, so luck was the key factor. The best player in that match was rifler EliGE, with a rating of 1.50 and a K/D ratio of 52/37. However, FaZe Clan unexpectedly decided that EliGE was the root of their problems and benched him, signing a relatively unknown 21-year-old Polish player, jcobbb, from Betclic Apogee.
Team Falcons won their first clash following their disappointing performance at IEM Cologne 2025. With Team Liquid’s early exit, the Saudi organization secured first place in the Esports World Cup 2025 standings ahead of schedule – along with $7 million in prize money!
Quarterfinals
In the first round, TYLOO defeated the famous Astralis, but in the next one, they faced Vitality. That was the end of the Chinese fairy tale – 4:13 on Inferno and 8:13 on Nuke.
The MongolZ, after an easy victory over GamerLegion in the opening round (13:7, 13:3), faced the stubborn 3DMAX, who had not yet recovered from their euphoria of beating NAVI. The teams traded wins on their opponent’s picks, both with a score of 13:9, but on the Nuke decider, the Mongolian squad showcased their skills (13:8) and advanced to the semifinals.
Home crowd support helped Falcons defeat MOUZ (2-1), while Aurora easily took down the constantly reshuffling HEROIC roster (2-0).
Semifinals
Vitality entered the match against The MongolZ as favorites but lost the first map, Mirage (8:13), without much of a fight. They managed to bounce back on their own pick, Dust2 (13:9), but completely collapsed on the decider, Nuke, losing the first half 10:2. Finishing the third map (13:7) – and the match (2-1) – was a mere formality for the Mongolian squad.
In the second semifinal, Team Falcons v Aurora Gaming, the odds favored the hosts. Falcons, bolstered by young talent kyousuke, hadn’t shown such confidence in a while. However, the Turkish side Aurora was even more determined to win – and did so convincingly with a score of 2-0 (13:6, 13:11). Everyone who believed in Aurora’s potential and bet on them tripled their reward!
Grand final and third-place match
A win in the third-place match would have secured Vitality second spot in the overall EWC 2025 standings and earned them an extra $1 million in prize money, while for Falcons, that clash wasn’t nearly as crucial. Even so, the French squad couldn’t find its rhythm and suffered a crushing defeat. On the first map, Falcons pulled ahead 8:4. Still, ZywOo and company managed a heroic comeback to win 13:9. That, however, was the last push from Vitality – they collapsed on the remaining two maps, losing to the home team by a humiliating 13:3 score on both.
The EWC 2025 grand final was held in a Bo5 format, but The MongolZ and Aurora treated the audience to a quick series. Only the first map, Mirage, went into overtime – and the Mongolian squad came out on top (16:14). On their pick, Dust2, the Turks managed to tie the score at 9:9 but then lost four rounds in a row (13:9). On the third map, Nuke, Aurora completely fell apart, winning only four rounds.
In the end, the final concluded with a 3-0 victory, and The MongolZ won their first major tournament this year, claiming $500,000 in prize money. Their star player, Tencho, received his first-ever MVP award with a tournament rating of 1.39 – earning $10,000 from the organizers and the HLTV x 1XBET Most Valuable Player title.
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