Seven rounds. Seven losses. Three map wins all season. That was GiantX's ledger walking into Tuesday night — and they walked out of Round 8 with a 2-1 over SK Gaming, a revenge story eight rounds in the making, and easily the loudest result of the evening. Elsewhere the league's hierarchy held: OG stayed perfect, G2 and Solary kept pace, and Junior played a map without dying once.

SK Gaming 1-2 GiantX: the first one always tastes best

Let's start where the noise was. GiantX opened on Polaris at 100% to 54% and it never looked like an accident: Jppro put up 9 kills, Chrisaser stacked 7 with 5 assists, and the team that had spent seven rounds getting picked apart suddenly looked organised, patient, and dangerous.

Then came the test that would have broken the old GiantX. SK took Engine 100% to 96% — a two-point heartbreaker, the kind of map that has ended every other GiantX evening this season. Instead of folding, they went to the Cliff decider and produced their most complete map of the year: 100% to 68%, with Javcross top-scoring the map at 10/9/3 and Jppro adding another 10 kills of his own. Even KaChow's 11-kill effort on the other side — he finished as the series' top fragger with 20 — couldn't drag SK back.

There is a poetic detail in the fixture list: SK Gaming were the team that beat GiantX 2-1 in Round 1. Eight rounds later, GiantX returned the exact scoreline. Jppro finished the series with 25 kills, the roster finally looks like the sum of its parts, and the bottom of the table suddenly has a team nobody will enjoy playing. First wins are rarely this well-constructed. It genuinely was a show — and on this evidence, it won't be the last one.

Team Heretics 0-2 OG Esports: perfection, administered calmly

The league leaders' night, by contrast, was a formality delivered with frightening precision. Cliff: 100% to 0%. Artefact: 100% to 0%. Heretics did not win a single percentage point across the series.

The headline belongs to Junior: 7 kills, 0 deaths on Cliff, part of a series line of 12/1/2 that earned him Round 8 MVP. Asreag opened the night at 10/2/1, and on Artefact the whole roster shared the surgery — Kelly 6/2/2, Vexaa a spotless 5/0/0. Heretics rotated Chifly into the lineup looking for a spark; the spark never came. OG move to 8-0 and the question is no longer whether anyone can catch them, but whether anyone can take a map off them.

Solary 2-1 Shifters: the third-place decider went the distance

The one matchup billed as a coin flip delivered. Solary struck first on Artefact, 100% to 81% — the closest opening map of the night, with Grom and Niivak trading 9-kill performances. Shifters answered on Engine, 100% to 68%, Bakki and Tirrnag combining for 14 kills to force the decider.

Then Solary remembered who they are. Outlaw finished 100% to 13%, with Niivak erupting for 13/7/5 and Wire adding 12 on his way to the round's top-fragger crown at 27 kills. On the other side, Mattdouuu's 13/13 was a one-man resistance — nobody else on Shifters reached three kills. Solary take third place into their own hands; Shifters drop to fourth and will feel the table tightening behind them.

Team Vitality 0-2 G2 Esports: the chase group sorts itself out

Round 7 told us to circle this one. G2 uncircled it in about forty minutes. Silva went 100% to 76% behind an 11-kill map from Skyzer, and Ceres collapsed to 100% to 27% with Karim going 11/4/3 and Vexaa's spiritual twin Ace slotting in seamlessly for Dimzy. Skyzer's series line of 20/10/6 confirmed what Round 7's perfect game suggested: he is playing the best VR of his life right now.

Vitality's only real bright spot was Zaybux, who kept fighting on both maps. Both teams rotated their fifth men mid-series; only G2's rotation looked rehearsed.

The table after Round 8

OG Esports 8-0 (24 points), then G2 Esports and Solary at 6-2 (18), with Shifters 5-3 (15) holding fourth. At the other end, GiantX's three points don't move them off the bottom yet — but for the first time this season, the bottom of the table has momentum.

Round MVP: Junior (OG Esports) — 12/1/2, rating 13.00, including the 7/0 Cliff. Top Fragger: Wire (Solary) — 27 kills.

Round 9: July 21

The slate to watch: G2 vs Solary is now an outright second-place decider, and GiantX vs Team Heretics is suddenly interesting for a reason nobody predicted in June — GiantX with belief are a different fixture. OG get Vitality and, presumably, another quiet evening.

Every kickoff in your local timezone, live standings and every player's stats: inter-arena.com/pro-league.