IEM New York EU: fnatic and FaZe Advance to Playoffs

After OG and Vitality had already booked their tickets to the playoffs, fnatic and FaZe have followed suit. The two teams had to go up against Complexity and BIG in the Decider Matches.

Benjamin “blameF” Bremer and his boys have fought valiantly – all things considered. The departure of Owen “oBo” Schlatter has impacted them massively, but still, their stand-in, Niels-Christian “NaToSaphix” Silassen, helped them compete with the top teams.

Despite their 8-16 defeat to Vitality, they dragged the Frenchmen all the way to overtime on the second map. At the end, Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut and company came out victorious, but not without getting their butts kicked by Kristian “k0nfig” Wienecke. Under those circumstances, Complexity did actually have a chance going up against fnatic, who themselves have struggled with performance issues.

The 2-0 result is pretty misleading, as Complexity could have been the winners just as well. On Train, Valentin “poizon” Vasilev and Freddy “KRiMZ” Johansson both made a run for the MVP medal. They each got 38 and 36 Kills, 1.48 and 1.47 ratings, respectively. After their CT half, Complexity had a 9-6 lead on Train and secured the first five offensive rounds. Suddenly, the Swedes stood with their backs against the wall and were close to giving up the map. But they eventually got their act together and Complexity were only able to muster one more round, enough to get to overtime. There, fnatic snatched 4 round and got the 19-16 victory.

On Vertigo, they quickly got in the lead. Complexity were almost able to close the gap again, but failed just one round shy of overtime. So fnatic secured a 16-14 win and made their way to the playoffs. If it hadn’t been for the insane comeback of Maikil “Golden” Selim’s men on the first map, we might have actually seen blameF and the boys compete in the Semi Finals.

FAZE REACH PLAYOFFS FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE ROSTER CHANGE

FaZe Clan have had a lengthy dry spell. Ever since the acquisition of Markus “Kjaerbye” Kjærbye, the team had missed out on every playoffs opportunity and the players were beaten down by virtually every other roster. Apparently, they have used their early ESL Pro League exit to rectify a lot of the issues, which has worked beautifully so far. Even though they still lost to OG, they have now secured two solid victories over Heroic and BIG.

On the first map versus the German team, they got a small 8-7 lead. They snowballed their Mirage offense to a 16-9 victory. Helvijs “broky” Saukants is gradually developing into a star player for this superteam. With a 1.32 rating, he even toppled Nikola “NiKo” Kovač.

On Nuke, NiKo flexed his muscles once again. With a solid 10-5 on the CT side, they got enough rounds together to comfortably shoot themselves over the finishing line on the offense. Following a 16-11 map win, they were the winners of the match and finally made their way to the playoffs.

SEMI FINALS COMING UP!

The pairings promise to deliver some exciting CS:GO action. Team Vitality have performed beautifully until now, so much so that a loss to FaZe Clan is no real option for them. But BIG and Heroic probably thought them same, before being beaten down by this team. The new FaZe is putting up a solid show and Vitality have likely not prepared a lot against them, considering that they were the weakest Group B team on paper.

OG now have to go up against fnatic. Both teams have had shaky performances as of late. Every now and then, they deliver some great CS – but who is going to be that top team tomorrow? Ludvig “Brollan” Brolin and Mateusz “mantuu” Wilczewski will bring the heat to this match.