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IEM Chengdu playoffs recap
Vitality struggled more than they should have against Astralis, but they did eventually move past them in three, setting up a semi-final against MOUZ. Alright, we’ve all been here before. 10 times this year already, now 11. MOUZ vs Vitality. Vitality always win.
But MOUZ had won in the group stage, and it started brilliantly.
Nuke was picked by Vitality, but you wouldn’t know it. Vitality had to fight tooth and nail for all three of their T side rounds, and MOUZ matched that four rounds into the second half. MOUZ were 1-0 up in the series, and could go on to their own ma-
What?
What do you mean they lost from 12-4 up?
It’s hard not to let out a sigh and metaphorically pat MOUZ on the head every time you see them lose in the playoffs to Vitality, but this one was heartbreaking. Just to make it worse, they even won map two. They won Vitality’s pick!
If they hadn’t thrown away a 12-4 lead…
Vitality, predictably, went on to win Inferno in a tight-ish fashion and moved on - unconvincingly - to the Grand Final.
They would face FURIA, who easily dispatched of The MongolZ and then, remarkably, did the same to Falcons. YEKINDAR said before the game that ‘m0NESY is great, but we have molodoy’, which seemed like a recipe for disaster - like when you see an old tweet from a Man U fan saying they ‘don’t need Haaland, we have Hojlund’,
It wasn’t like that at all, but in fairness it wasn’t molodoy at the top of the scoreboard. It was yuurih and YEKINDAR who took over and ended the Falcons hopes.
They always had the third place decider, which we’re contractually obliged to tell you finished 2-1 to MOUZ.
Nice of NiKo to show up in the biggest game of them all.
