The best-of-one on Mirage, played on August 12 in Paris, produced one of the tournament’s earliest and most dramatic upsets. Spirit, ranked in the top three globally and fresh off a championship run at the MSC event held at the same venue, was expected to handle business with minimal resistance. AdvertisementDavid vs. Goliath, but David actually wonJiJieHao entered the Esports World Cup ranked approximately 44th in the world. The BO1 format: chaos engineThe Esports World Cup 2026 CS2 event uses a double-elimination system with BO1 opening matches before transitioning to single-elimination playoffs. The $2 million prize pool across the CS2 portion of the Esports World Cup makes every match consequential.