After all the visa issues, illnesses, and the resultant messed up seeding it’s a bit of a surprise we’ve actually got a decent playoff bracket.
FaZe, who had half their name on the trophy before the event even began (you can’t jinx karrigan anymore guys, relax), flew through Encore and Vitality but stumbled in the glorified seeding match that is the upper bracket final against ENCE.
Yes, the ENCE without their best player. And it was stand-in Snax who knocked FaZe down a peg; anything jks can do, eh?
The win over FaZe built on top of a battering of MOUZ and two 16:14 wins over G2 — Snappi yet again deserves all the plaudits we can give. He’s still trying to make hades consistent though.
Meanwhile, in the lower bracket, it was the still unconvincing G2 who prevailed. NiKo gave an interview where he bemoaned the team’s “chemistry” and “teamplay” since Katowice, but having your star player go from the “bEsT In tHE wOrlD” to 1.08 Ratings at EPL and 1.13 at the Major can’t have helped either.
Lo and behold, NiKo is back smashing heads in Dallas with a 1.24 Rating and G2 have qualified for playoffs. This game isn’t rocket science, fellas.
Meanwhile in Group B, BIG have done something harder than rocket science: got syrsoN to perform on LAN. Their AWPer was a monster in the opener against NIP and the upper bracket final win over FURIA — just don’t put your house on him doing the same against FaZe (or Cloud9) in semis.
FURIA got to that UB final by defeating Imperial (whose pan fire has very much gone out) and then everyone’s favourite jiggle peek abusers Cloud9. Speaking of Cloud9, we’re starting to think they need a new veto coach.
Picking FURIA’s best map is just silly, even if it’s your best map too — nafany will always just be a budget arT on Vertigo (and everywhere else, but we don’t have time for that one).
Cloud9, though, did recover from that loss to beat NIP (without hampus) and Liquid (without hands) to make it to a quarter-final against.. checks notes FaZe. Ah. Unlucky lads.
At least we’ll get some more banging Mauisnake C9 slander on the desk afterward.
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