China's Titans Reign Supreme

The first team to qualify to the first major event of 2025 is here: Chinese titans Toxic Lotus have qualified to Brawl Cup. Across two fierce rounds of competition, the regional favorites dominated to complete an easy sweep to their next LAN qualification with an undefeated Split 1 run. 

This year, the first split of the 2025 BSC CN season commenced with the qualifier round to qualify sixteen teams to elimination round, something that the circuit has seen in years prior. This time around, however, the format consisted of tight single elimination groups. 16 teams battled across four groups for the one coveted spot in each group to advance to the double elimination finals.

Few teams fielded notable names, but three groups had teams with returning talent. In Group A, TL Genesis swept both of their matches to qualify for the Split 1 finals fieldied CN veteran Goodnight, Toxic Lotus’ 4th man from last year Killua, and Lightstar. 

In Group B, 胖胖虎, also known as HU, competed with his team 自爆大神 for the first time since 2021 when he competed in the ML China monthly finals under team TIGer Bro. They qualified from their group in a close fashion after back to back 2-1 scorelines.

In Group C, the favorites cleaned up as Toxic Lotus swept their way to the Split 1 finals. Last year’s roster remains the same despite rumors of OU’s retirement as White and engine continue to dominate the region. 

Group D was the least noteworthy in terms of past names, but it saw LyFoemx, 水流明, 旦晨曦

 take the win with a 2-0 win over SCUT and a 2-1 win against Help Me to qualify their team Alhpa to the Split 1 Finals. 

Most of the matches in the Split 1 finals weren’t close. In a surprising turn of events, 自爆大神 took their opening match in the upper bracket against TL Genesis in a 3-1 fashion while Toxic Lotus made quick work of Alhpa with a 3-0 sweep. The lower bracket saw TL Genesis fight their way back with a nailbiter 3-2 win over Alhpa and flipped the script in their rematch against 自爆大神 with a 3-0 victory. Despite all this, the kings of China prevailed with a 3-0 sweep of 自爆大神 in the upper bracket finals and a 3-0 sweep of TL Genesis in the grand finals to crown Toxic Lotus as the Split 1 CN Champions. This locks in their spot at May’s Brawl Cup LAN event, the location of which has yet to be released. This also marks OU’s 12th regional event win in a row, having placed first in every official BSC event since the first monthly final of 2021. With a convincing show over NAVI at last year’s LCQ, we can’t wait to see what tricks are in the bag for Toxic Lotus this year with a chance to create some real upsets and find CN’s first placement outside the bottom at an international event.