The first match was between the former iNation team, now known as GamePub, and Astana Dragons . Starting as CT on de_nuke, GamePub won the pistol round having Nikola 'NiKolinho' Kovač scoring three frags. The Serbian team continued to outmatch Kiril 'ANGE1' Karasiow's squad as they won five more rounds in a row, until the CIS-based team manage to took the seventh round. However, GamePub manage to restore quickly from the lost round, as they triggered strong defense winning the next four rounds. Astana Dragons took another round, but felt down shortly, losing the first half.

The second half did not start well for them too, as they failed to take the all important pistol round. Mihail 'Dosia' Stolyarov's individual skills, which were outstanding during the entire match, including a knife frag, and the significantly stronger CT side were simply not enough. The Serbian GamePub won the first map with stunning results, leaving the highly favored Astana Dragons team with only six rounds.

The second map was de_mirage, where once again the Serbians started as CT, winning the pistol round and continued to dominate through the entire first half. Mihail 'Dosia' Stolyarov surprised the fans as he pulled out the last round of the first half for his team by himself, planting the bomb and defending it against three players, in result scoring an ace. The second half seemed to be better for the CIS-based team as they finally stepped up winning the pistol round. However, everything changed earlier than expected, as the Macedonian star Anel 'neno' Cekovic shocked the viewers by performing an ace against Astana Dragons on an eco round. Yegor 'markeloff' Markelov and his teammates did not surrender, as they took eight more rounds, before eventually being outmatched by the Serbian team. GamePub won the match with incredible performance and without doubt, they have proven to be a real threat.



In the beginning of the second match of Day 1, things were looking the same as the previous match, as the Polish team AGAiN, starting as T took down Natus Vincere without much resistance on de_cache, leaving the Ukrainian with only four won rounds as CT and not a single one as T. Thanks to the young new star Paweł 'byali' Bieliński's performance, the Polish pride came up with an easy victory.

During the second map de_dust2, Natus Vincere were playing much better, starting as T and winning the pistol round. Ladislav 'GuardiaN' Kovács's AWP frags were crucial in certain situations, as he managed to perform better than his opponent Jarosław 'pasha' Jarząbkowski. Danylo 'Zeus' Teslenko's strats and individual play were a big deal for Natus Vincere as they took nine rounds in the first half. The Polish team AGAiN did not manage to recover, as they took only one round as T, leaving the second map to the Ukrainian-based team.

However, AGAiN stepped up during the third map de_inferno, winning the pistol round thanks to Jarosław 'pasha' Jarząbkowski's three entry frags. Along with Wiktor 'TaZ' Wojtas's impressive play, the Polish team scored ten rounds on the considered to be weaker side, even against Sergey 'starix' Ishchuk's beast performance. AGAiN continued to play impressive and took the needed six rounds to win the match, leaving Natus Vincere with only nine rounds on de_inferno.



The first day of SLTV StarSeries VIII was a day to remember, having stunning results and superb individual highlights. Tomorrow, the second day of the tournament will start with lower bracket match between Astana Dragons and Natus Vincere at 14:00 CET. Following next is the upper bracket match between GamePub and AGAiN at 19:00 CET. Both of them will be played in a best-of-three format. You can watch the matches live via starladder's twitch.tv channel.

Stay tuned at SK Gaming for more hot news from SLTV StarSeries VIII.