Yesterday’s Fall Final matches weren’t short of outstanding plays, even though not all the teams could bring out the best in them. Two teams booked their place in Royal Arena whilst two booked their flights home.
We woke up to the closest map of the event so far, with double overtime between NiP and OG. It took the Ninjas a little to get out of their pyjamas and start to get a grip on the series, but in the end, OG were the ones being sent back home to sleep, as they were dominated on Vertigo and lost the match in two maps with 19:22 on Ancient and 10:16 on the skyscraper.
Es3tag summed up the game for BLAST.tv: “ The thing is that we know that Ancient is a super CT-sided map, so as soon as we got 3-0 in overtime, we were like: “It doesn't matter. We have lots of cash, so let's just play the rounds in CT. One round at a time, and we'll bring it back.
“On Vertigo, I feel like we should have many more rounds on the T-side. There were also a lot of really close clutches. They never had the economy, we knew that and we had to break them, but they still managed to get eight rounds, which was commendable for them.”
Following this explosive warmup to day two of Fall Final, we were treated to a Great Dane showdown between FaZe and Heroic's IGLs, as the anticipated test for karrigan’s squad proved to be quite the show. At least on the first map, Heroic looked like they could cement their position within the top of the scene, but a 14:11 lead slipped through their fingers and ended in a 16:14 loss.
FaZe were up for some desert and took the momentum into the second Inferno. There, Heroic needed to withstand FaZe's firepower, as Twistzz melted them down with 25 frags in 21 rounds. He was supported by his Danish leader, who wanted to get to the Royal Arena so bad, that he posted 24 frags himself. FaZe ended Inferno for Heoric at 16:5, quite the statement.
Following the match, Rain revealed the recipe for success: “Ropz’s score was 14 kills and 11 deaths, which saved the first game for us. It brought us the fire back and without it, I think it would've been 0-1 for us.”
“On Inferno, Twistzz and karrigan had a really good game plan for banana and for figuring out a way to keep getting interest. And when they kept dying in banana, that’s very hard to play the map.”
In the third faceoff of the day, G2 was matched up against Fluxo — a must-win game for the international team. They started in easy mode, playing freely but dominating their opponents on Dust2 for a 16:4 score. HooXi even managed to stay alive for 11 rounds in a row.
But following this, we witnessed NiKo and the boys getting into trouble, and flashbacks of missing the Rio Major started popping up. Felps and the rest of the Brazilians made G2 sweat as if they were stuck in a Danish sauna, and what surfaced were some issues in communication when the European squad got stressed. The match went back and forth, but luckily for G2, they managed to turn it around after a respectable showing by Fluxo and closed out Mirage 16:14.
Jks explained G2’s strategy after sending Fluxo back to Brazil: “Our game plan was just to play our own game and not really focus on what they were doing, not like yesterday against Liquid, when we focused too much on what they were doing. Obviously, it worked out well.”
The cherry on top of our day two menu was Na’Vi vs Team Liquid! A real treat for everyone, and it would not disappoint. The first map, Inferno, was hard fought and spiked with intense situations decided by the crispiest aim on display for day two. Especially by nitr0, whose 31 frags blasted away Na’Vi's hopes of taking inferno. The scoreline was 16:14, a narrow defeat which must have fired up s1mple for map two.
Na’Vi started to take revenge on the T-side of Dust2 running away with the first half, taking a 12:3 half, but the match wasn’t done yet. Liquid had a comeback brewing, but after losing nine out of 12 rounds, the CIS squad managed to put a lid on it and finished the game 16:12.
On decider Mirage, s1mple did everything in his power to get the win, but his teammates failed to keep up. Liquid shut them down with 11 T-side rounds and a quick 16:7 finish, serving a 2:1 loss to their rivals. Securing a place in Royal Arena was a pleasant gift for NAF on his 25th birthday, but the other birthday boy Perfecto will have one more chance to make it to the arena finals at the weekend.
Nitr0 shed light for us on choosing the right approach when facing the CIS powerhouse: “We decided to play a little bit faster and poppier, and a little bit more scrimmy, so to speak. And it was working out super well for us, YEKINDAR was making some amazing calls on the T-side as well. It was just working, we were hitting some really nice shots of really nice treats, so it was good.”
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