With the aftermath of countless upsets playing out in IEM Katowice’s semifinals, this continued to be one of the most unpredictable knock-out stages in recent memory.
Both games however ended in decisive 2 -0 victories for the CIS teams, Gambit and Virtus.pro. The two are now on track to meet tomorrow in a best of five series.
Gambit Cruise Into Finals
Gambit was perhaps the biggest dark horse coming into this single elimination bracket of underdogs, as they initially struggled in the group stages, dropping a series to Evil Geniuses. Despite this, Gambit proved themselves by snapping Spirit’s winning streak and delivering their first defeat in months, doing what Astralis, BIG, and Vitality couldn’t.
Gambit kept a healthy lead in both games, taking off with round win streaks after gaining even the slightest econ advantage. Dmitry ‘sh1ro’ Sokolov set the tone of the second map in round five with an insane 1v3 clutch, which was only continued by Sergey “Ax1Le” Ryhktorov’s performance as he finished with 48 kills across the series. While Gambit was impressive and coming into the finals hot, it will be interesting to see if Spirit can rekindle their great showing from the tournament.
NA’s Hope Falls
The lone non-CIS team remaining in IEM Katowice, Team Liquid was taken down in a clean series by Virtus.pro. Compared to their tense three-game series against Astralis yesterday, this was a much smoother ride for the squad. In both games, Team Liquid showed promise in the early rounds of the game however the duo of Dzhami “Jame” Ali and Mareks “YEKINDAR” Galinskis overwhelmed the NA squad by turning around both games with their individual fragging ability.
Virtus.pro’s dominance is seen through their late-round performance, as Team Liquid only managed to pick up a total of 7 second-half rounds in the entire series. Now in the finals, Virtus.pro will have to overcome Gambit, something they haven’t been able to do in their last two series against their CIS counterparts.
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