IEM New York EU: First Play-Day Recap

There were quite a few surprises amongst the winning teams of the first few matches. The biggest shocker were FaZe Clan, who set themselves on top of Heroic in a dominant and decisive fashion.

HEROIC SUFFER DEFEAT AT THE HANDS OF FAZE

The ESL Pro League Playoffs have only concluded a few days ago and already, the results are being turned upside down. Heroic had just made third place and were only defeated by Natus Vincere and Astralis. FaZe, on the other hand, had been amongst the very worst of the league and too weak to contend with the playing field. Unable to make playoffs, they had a lot of time at their hands to prepare.

On Mirage, Heroic secured a 9-6 lead at halftime. Afterwards, FaZe surprisingly ran away with their CT rounds and Nikola “NiKo” Kovač secured 25 kills for the 16-11 win. On Train, the Danes had an even worse time. They managed to win the first three rounds, but FaZe then stormed off with the remainder of the the map, winning the match on a 16-3 scoreline. Obviously, this is a redeeming victory for FaZe, who hadn’t been able to impress at all in this constellation. More importantly, however, Markus “Kjaerbye” Kjærbye finally showed up. On Train, he delivered 19 kills and just 5 deaths.

COMPLEXITY, OG & VITALITY NARROWLY MAKE IT TO WINNERS’ MATCH

For the other victorious teams, making it to the Winners’ Match wasn’t as easy. In Group B, OG went up against BIG. On Inferno, Aleksi “Aleksib” Viroulainen struggled and couldn’t deliver on the fragging front. In his place, Valdemar “valde” Bjørn Vangså showed up in top form and carried his team to overtime versus the Germans. There, OG delivered the 19-15 win and sent the Germans to their own map pick. Still, they were unable to win, as Issa “ISSAA” Murad did quick work of Johannes “tabseN” Wodarz and company, who merely got 9 rounds on the board. Nils “k1to” Gruhne had a particularly tough time and only got together 9 kills.

So OG are entering the Winners’ Match alongside FaZe Clan. They would probably prefer Heroic as their opponent, considering that FaZe are entirely unpredictable following their upset victory.

In Group A, Vitality and Complexity managed to set themselves on top of fnatic and G2, respectively. Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut and his colleagues narrowly survived versus the Swedes and had to fight through two overtimes, until they finally held the 2-1 victory in this Best-of-Three. Complexity also had to work their way through overtime against G2, but thanks to the great display of Benjamin “blameF” Bremer, they got out with the win. This time around, their substitute, Niels-Christian “NaToSaphix” Silassen, didn’t dominate as much as he did against ENCE during the EPL playoffs. Still, he did his part and continues to ensure that Complexity remain competitive, even without Owen “oBo” Schlatter.

Now, Vitality and Complexity will have to face off. We have last seen this match-up on September 17, where blameF and company secured a relatively one-sided 2-0. But back then, oBo was still part of the Complexity roster – now, they’re weakened by his absence and maybe Vitality can finally overtake them.