IEM New York NA: FURIA Advance to Grand Finals

After a few close maps, the Brasilians are through to the Grand Finals once again and wait for 100 Thieves and Team One to complete their match. Liquid only managed to secure 5th place and Evil Geniuses can only hope for third.

In an incredibly tight Best-of-Three, Liquid were close to beating FURIA. On a 22-19 scoreline on Inferno, they managed to win the first map and transitioned to Mirage. There, the Brazilians looked strong at first and secured a 10-5 half. Jake “Stewie2k” Yip and his men brought the deficit down on the CT side and had to enter overtime once more. Unfortunately, they couldn’t pull through and had to play the Decider Map as well. With a strong T side, FURIA acquired enough of a lead to end the match on the defense. A narrow 16-13 got them the map and match win. Stewie2k and Russel “Twistzz” VanDulken struggled to keep up. Meanwhile, Henrique “HEN1” Teles played beautiful CS – as we have known him to do for months now -and was the top player on the server with a 1.36 Rating.

So Liquid had to dial their expectations for the event back quite a bit. Since this isn’t a Double Elimination Bracket, the best they could now hope for was fifth place – which they did get in the end, winning a 2-0 match versus the New England Whalers.

FURIA VS. EG

Even before the playoffs, we wondered whether Evil Geniuses would finally be able to defeat their nemesis. Their last map victory against the Brazilians dates back months. Back during ESL One Cologne, they managed to succeed over FURIA, but ever since then, HEN1 and company have reigned supreme. Yesterday was no different.

FURIA kicked the match off with a 16-4 win. EG had no chance on Nuke and were swept off the server by an exceptional Kaike “KSCERATO” Certao. The player earned himself a bombastic 2.40 rating. On Train, EG managed themselves better and at least secured 6 rounds in the first half. For the T side, this wasn’t too bad a result, but they simply couldn’t utilize their CT advantage. This time around, it was Yurih “yuurih” Santos who handed them the loss. Peter “stanislaw” Jarguz and his men fell on a close 13-16 scoreline and are now heading into the duel for third place. FURIA, on the other hand, can make themselves comfortable in the Grand Finals.

Their opponents will be decided today. 100 Thieves will face Team One as the clear favorites. But in their match versus Chaos, the Brazilians have shown to possess quite a lot of upset potential.