The second day of the StarLadder CIS Minor to Cologne 2016 saw Empire eliminate heavyweight Arcade on the new Nuke map and later on both Empire and ANOX advanced to the semifinals of the event.

Taking place at the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel in Moscow, Russia from April 28 to May 1, the StarLadder Regional CIS Minor Championship is seeing eight teams from the region compete for $50,000 and two spots to the offline qualifier for ESL One Cologne 2016, CS:GO's next Major.

The first day saw Anatoliy "⁠liTTle⁠" Yashin & co. of FLuffy Gangsters and Dmitriy "⁠Dimaoneshot⁠" Bandurka and crew of Worst Players advance to the semifinals while the second day promised two best-of-one elimination matches and two decider matches to determine the final two teams to advance to the CIS Minor playoffs.

The first match of the day was a bit of a doozy as it was the first competitive instance of two teams playing on the new Nuke map (fondly called 'newke' by some in the community).

kUcheR made it to the CIS Minor semis with his new team

Despite tweaks by the game's developers to make the map less CT-sided than it had traditionally been, the map was still CT-sided as Empire pulled off a 12-3 CT half against Arcade's 11-4 CT half to win the map 16-14 and eliminate Arcade from the CIS Minor.  Sergey "⁠spaz⁠" Skrypchik and Emil "⁠kUcheR⁠" Akhundov were particularly effective for their team, pulling in 1.31 and 1.30 ratings respectively.

StarLadder Minor CIS - Cologne 2016Best of 1 EmpireMatchpage 16 14 29th April 2016 Arcade 16Nuke 14

Empire	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Sergey 'spaz' Skrypchikspaz	29 - 20	+9	88.8	1.33
Emil 'kUcheR' AkhundovkUcheR	25 - 17	+8	77.1	1.10
Roman 'CyberFocus' DergachCyberFocus	19 - 16	+3	64.0	1.02
Denis 'electroNic' SharipovelectroNic	12 - 22	-10	56.9	0.87
Alexander 'spiker' Ivanovspiker	15 - 25	-10	68.0	0.86

Arcade	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Nikolay 'mir' Bityukovmir	33 - 20	+13	94.8	1.44
Dmitriy 'jR' ChervakjR	24 - 20	+4	86.6	1.28
Pavel 'COLDYY1' VeklenkoCOLDYY1	16 - 21	-5	59.0	0.94
Dmitry 'S0tF1k' ForostyankoS0tF1k	15 - 23	-8	71.0	0.86
Pavel 'hutji' Lashkovhutji	12 - 16	-4	49.2	0.84

Empire then jumped into their best-of-three decider match against the quite unknown Digital Wave team (who nevertheless had defeated Empire in a best-of-one the day before) and had an easy time of it, claiming Cobblestone 16-12 and Mirage 16-6 and thereby advancing into the playoffs of the CIS Minor and getting one step closer to a slot at the ESL One Cologne 2016 Qualifier.

StarLadder Minor CIS - Cologne 2016Best of 3 Digital WaveMatchpage 0 2 29th April 2016 Empire 12Cobblestone 16 6Mirage 16

Empire	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Sergey 'spaz' Skrypchikspaz	48 - 24	+24	99.1	1.56
Roman 'CyberFocus' DergachCyberFocus	35 - 24	+11	64.1	1.26
Denis 'electroNic' SharipovelectroNic	38 - 34	+4	87.4	1.25
Emil 'kUcheR' AkhundovkUcheR	41 - 33	+8	84.9	1.17
Alexander 'spiker' Ivanovspiker	28 - 27	+1	73.0	1.09

Digital Wave	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Kiril 'PLAZ' SidorovPLAZ	39 - 33	+6	77.0	1.08
Alexandr 'Foga' RomanenkoFoga	28 - 36	-8	78.0	0.89
Anton 'Koshak' PlatkoKoshak	31 - 40	-9	81.0	0.89
Igor 'norison' Matyevnorison	25 - 44	-19	56.9	0.62
Ruslan 'spyn' Kalakovspyn	19 - 37	-18	46.0	0.57

In Group B, Binary Dragons Gold matched up against Vesuvius on Dust2 in the best-of-one elimination match and it was a one-sided stomp as the former team won 16-4. Ilya "⁠medusa⁠" Mertsalov of Binary Dragons Gold posted a 1.57 rating and a 98.8 ADR.

StarLadder Minor CIS - Cologne 2016Best of 1 Binary Dragons GoldMatchpage 16 4 29th April 2016 Vesuvius 16Dust2 4

Binary Dragons Gold	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Valerii 'PALICH' PalkinPALICH	17 - 11	+6	89.7	1.58
Ilya 'medusa' Mertsalovmedusa	20 - 9	+11	98.8	1.56
Mihail 'lma' Lutovininlma	17 - 11	+6	80.4	1.35
Aleksey 'ace' Kazakovace	13 - 12	+1	77.2	1.18
Semyon 'kinqie' Lisitsynkinqie	11 - 13	-2	66.2	1.12

Vesuvius	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Aleksey '1uke' Zimin1uke	15 - 11	+4	74.8	1.16
Alexander 'uNdo' KiziukevichuNdo	12 - 18	-6	87.2	0.82
Gregory 'balblna' Oleinickbalblna	10 - 16	-6	65.3	0.70
Alexey 'BAS' KustovBAS	12 - 17	-5	57.1	0.56
Yaroslav 'It's my' UshkovIt's my	7 - 16	-9	56.2	0.54

Although the first day at the CIS Minor had seen plenty of upsets and close games, the final match of the day showed that the more experienced teams were indeed ready to play ball as Binary Dragons Gold were destroyed by ANOX in the Group B decider match.

ANOX kept their hopes alive on the second day 

The former Method team gave up only ten rounds across two maps, winning Mirage 16-8 and Train 16-2 to be the fourth and final team to advance to the playoffs of the CIS Minor (and thus the only team to have fallen short of bigger expectations overall at this event so far has been Arcade).

StarLadder Minor CIS - Cologne 2016Best of 3 ANOXMatchpage 2 0 29th April 2016 Binary Dragons Gold 16Mirage 8 16Train 2

ANOX	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Alexey 'ub1que' Polivanovub1que	41 - 22	+19	106.4	1.61
Igor 'dERZKIY' RadosavlevichdERZKIY	40 - 20	+20	99.7	1.57
Dmitriy 'facecrack' Alekseyevfacecrack	41 - 24	+17	96.0	1.46
Savelii 'jmqa' Braginjmqa	31 - 18	+13	73.8	1.34
Kirill 'hitMouse' TsarevhitMouse	25 - 19	+6	70.4	1.18

Binary Dragons Gold	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Ilya 'medusa' Mertsalovmedusa	25 - 34	-9	70.7	0.80
Aleksey 'ace' Kazakovace	20 - 35	-15	60.5	0.65
Valerii 'PALICH' PalkinPALICH	22 - 36	-14	54.8	0.64
Semyon 'kinqie' Lisitsynkinqie	16 - 36	-20	54.9	0.61
Mihail 'lma' Lutovininlma	20 - 37	-17	62.1	0.59

The four remaining teams at the CIS Minor now find themselves in a best-of-three double elimination bracket and tomorrow will be reserved for both the upper bracket semifinals and the upper final; the first game is FLuffy Gangsters against ANOX at 13:00 .

The action can be followed live via StarLadder's Russian stream.

Do you still find yourself dazed and confused when thinking about the Wild Wild West that is the CIS scene? Our writer Milan "⁠Striker⁠" Švejda wrote a in-depth preview that can help you get up-to-speed with the four remaining teams duking it out at the CIS Minor for $50,000 in prize money and two spots to the ESL One Cologne Qualifier.

stich writes for HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter