FaZe are back.
Ish.
They toppled OG twice en route to the playoffs, but also managed to lose to BIG; but BIG have a weird way of doing that sometimes. They beat FaZe in the RMR at the peak of their powers, so it does happen.
Perhaps the biggest shock was that Astralis actually won some games, for once. Good for them.
Complexity and Movistar aren’t the hardest opponents, but that hasn’t stopped Astralis in the past. blameF actually had some teammates. They went through with Cloud9.
We mentioned a few of these teams earlier, but forZe, 9z, ENCE, and Eternal Fire make up the other teams in the playoffs. Now ENCE makes sense, but the others…
Eternal Fire struggled their way past Imperial and MOUZ in 2-1s after a loss against ENCE. They deserve to go through, but beating MOUZ isn’t exactly the feat it used to be.
They face BIG in the playoffs, though, so if they win that we’ll… have to say that beating BIG doesn’t really count, either.
9z, as we mentioned, beat FURIA 2-0 and then 2-1 to qualify, with their new AWPer nqz. They just keep signing players with three-letter names, for some reason.
The 17-year-old looked pretty tidy, but it was Chilean dav1d that ended the group stage as their highest-rated player. That’s just what NA needed - another country in South America with better players than them.
For forZe, it’s another impressive performance. This team - and especially Jerry throughout the years - keeps surprising and performing in big events. Well, big-ish.
They weren’t massively impressive on an individual level, but they were one of the most well-drilled teams around. Just as we’ve come to expect from Jerry teams.
They take on Astralis in the next round, which is spicy. We wouldn’t like to call that either way.
ENCE meet FaZe leaving Cloud9 to take on 9z. We’d ask what seeding they’re using, but they’ll probably reset it by accident in a minute.
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