Another big upset coming from the CSGO world. The CIS Cloud 9 roster yanked the rug out from under FaZe, ending their chances of completing the grand slam.
ESL Pro League Season 16 for Counter-Strike has seen a number of surprises. However, now that one of the top title contenders is out of the competition, additional clubs are in contention to win the trophy.
Despite Dmitry “sh1ro” Sokolov and the team losing the first map, Cloud 9 defeated the international superpower 2-1. Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken easily broke through Cloud 9's CT side during Inferno (13-16), which caused the FaZe team to lose the event.
The Match Recap
To take an early 4-0 lead in the series, Cloud9 defeated FaZe in the first pistol round of Inferno. Following three successful holds of the A bombsite, which also helped the CT economy get in shape for the remainder of the half, the Russians' advantage started to progressively erode. With a 1.59 rating and 100% KAST, Helvijs “broky” Saukants put up a strong effort for the defense, enabling the Europeans win the first half 8-7.
After switching sides, the game was still very tight because neither team was able to hold the lead for very long. On the CT side, Dmitry “sh1ro” Sokolov stepped up his game, and Sergey “Ax1Le” Rykhtorov continued to play well after the break, giving Cloud9 a 13–12 lead. With four hits in a row on the B site in response, FaZe were able to retake the lead and end the game with a 16-13 victory.
With their selection of Ancient, Cloud9 excelled. The Russian team took advantage of FaZe's B site defense to win eight straight rounds despite failing to build on their pistol round triumph. As the Europeans managed to salvage a 6-9 score at the half, broky struggled throughout the first half, only recording one frag and a 0.46 CT rating.
Even though FaZe won the second pistol round, they were unable to enter the game again. The European onslaught on the B site was stopped by Cloud9's force buy in the seventeenth round, giving the Ts the upper hand. Only one more round was lost by the Russian team before they evened the score at 16-9 and won their eighth straight LAN match against Ancient.
With a couple of aggressive rounds on the T side of Mirage, Cloud9 proceeded to astound FaZe. The karrigan's team was down by 4-9 after several strikes from the Russian offense on the A bombsite, but a brief comeback late in the half allowed them to only be down by 6-9 going into the break.
After transferring to the CT side, sh1ro re-emerged, but Ax1Le continued to shine the brightest. The 20-year-old rifler led Cloud9 to a 16-11 victory and the elimination of FaZe from the competition with a 1.99 rating on the CT side.
The Semi-Finals
With a berth in the semifinals already guaranteed, Cloud9 will try to exact retribution on Liquid on Saturday, October 1st. The North American team eliminated fnatic and MOUZ in the knockout round after finishing third in Group D.
