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Published: April 20, 2023

Written by: Stefan Velikov


  • The Russian squad beat hometown favorites FURIA 2-1
  • The match was full of twists and turns for both teams
  • C9 learned many valuable things from their match against FURIA

Cloud9 are continuing their redemption arc at the IEM Rio by defeating FURIA in a tough-fought match to secure a spot for the event’s semi-finals.

C9 Defeat FURIA

IEM Rio is slowly coming to an end and teams are working hard to be the ones at the grand finals. After defeating FURIA, Russian-majority team Cloud9 are one step closer to that goal as they have qualified for the tournament’s semi-finals. The team dispatched of MIBR with ease before securing a hard-fought 2-0 over OG to qualify for the playoffs, where they faced hometown favorites FURIA, whom they defeated in another hard-fought match. C9 now advance directly to the semi-finals of the IEM Rio.

It was clear right from the first map, Inferno, that the match is going to be a close one. FURIA were the ones who picked and gained an early lead. However, C9 did not plan to let things slide and offered stiff resistance, which led to both teams trading rounds until an extension was necessary. It was then that C9 made one last push to end Inferno with the scoreboard reading 19-17 in their favor.

Vladislav “?nafany?” Gorshkov’s men then chose Vertigo as the second map but were blown away by the Brazilian side as FURIA mustered a whopping 13-2 lead. As all seemed lost, C9 showed signs of life and quickly started closing the massive gap. However, they ran out of steam quickly and did not make it to the double digits, as FURIA closed out the map with a score of 16-9.

Ancient was chosen to be the match’s decider, and it was another slugfest, similarly to the first map. However, thanks to Sergey “?Ax1Le?” Rykhtorov’s multi-kill rounds, C9 managed to inch just past FURIAS to close out the map 16-12 and win the match 2-1.

C9 Are on Their Redemption Arc

Cloud9’s recent matches have been somewhat of a retribution for the team’s failure to qualify for the BLAST.tv Paris Major after suffering consecutive losses to Monte, G2, and ENCE. The final nail in the coffin was when they lost against FaZe, barring them entry to the BLAST tournament.

This weighed heavily on C9’s shoulders but was also their motivation to do better in IEM Rio. Despite their good performance so far, the team is learning some tough lessons. Abay “?HObbit?” Khassenov said with humility that the team was not as good on vertigo, as the players thought.

“I’m trying to be objective, they are playing really well, they are playing really, really well on that map,” he explained. “They outplayed us two times in a row on Vertigo without any chances, so it means a lot. I mean it makes sense that their Vertigo is better than us, so I’m not going to say we have the best Vertigo now.”

Cloud9 have until Sunday, when they will face the winner of the quarter-final between Vitality and BIG, to rethink their strategy.

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