After four long days of matches to decide who advances into the next round of the Overwatch Winter Premiere Open Play, the last five spots out of eight were finally confirmed. Kingdom eSports, Cloud9 and compLexity Gaming made it through the first three days of the open qualifiers by winning that day's bracket while everyone else racked up points instead. Four teams would be seeded through by winning all of their games and the last four spots would be awarded to the four teams that had the most points by the end of the open qualifier round.
NRG Esports makes their first appearance in the top four of these open qualifiers, facing off against Fnatic, a team looking for redemption for some sloppy games on Day 2. Meanwhile, NRG were likely looking to prove that the roster swap they made during OGN APEX was worth making, as that roster swap was a big reason as to why they were knocked out. However, finding team synergy even a month after the roster change seemed to yield disappointing results as they were swept 0-2 by Fnatic in almost record time.
Meeting Fnatic in the finals were Immortals, a team that wiped the floor with Luminosity for their spot in the finals. Fnatic exhibited solid teamwork, but their their fate was sealed by Brady "Agilities" Girardi, the most standout player in their matches against Luminosity. In many of the maps played, Agilities played both D.Va and Roadhog and both heroes allowed him to secure victory by taking out key members with excellent flanks and stellar positioning to get off multi-kill Self-Destructs, while also hooking in the DPS players with surgical precision on Roadhog.
With Immortals securing their spot in the round of eight, the last four spots are awarded to the four teams with the highest point values for their scores over the last four days. These four teams advancing are Fnatic, Luminosity, Kungarna and Team Liquid. They will join Kingdom eSports, Cloud9, compLexity Gaming and Immortals in the Group Play Phase 1 on Jan. 3 for a round robin. By the end, two of these teams will be culled.