- IHC continues to surprise both fans and professionals alike
- The Mongolian team secured a 2-0 victory over Cloud9, sending them home
- The game was not easy to win, but IHC’s players performed when it was most needed
IHC’s underdog story at IEM Katowice continues as the Mongolian squad defeated Cloud9, a team that’s well above them in the rankings.
IHC Eliminate Cloud9
IEM Katowice continues to be an event that surprises everybody. The most recent unexpected thing to happen in the tournament is how the Mongolian underdog team IHC defeated Cloud9 — a team ranked 24 spots above them. It was a narrow 2-0 victory for IHC that sent Cloud9 packing home and avenged the Mongolians’ loss to the Russians in the first stage of the event.
IHC has been continually surprising both fans and analysts at the Polish event by bringing a high-quality of CS:GO play. Before beating C9, the Mongolian team went up against paiN and world No. 9 FURIA in the first phase of the tournament, defeating them both. Their underdog stride was only broken when Liquid dominated them on Inferno and relegated them to the lower bracket after a flat 0-2 defeat.
After their victory over C9, Garidmagnai “bLitz” Byambasuren's squad still has a long way to go before being able to claim a spot in the playoffs. The Mongolians will have to face Finn “karrigan” Andersen's FaZe in the Group A lower semi-finals and then go up against a yet-to-be-decided team for a spot in the Spodek Arena.
Here’s How the Game Went
IHC started their match against C9 o Inferno, where they quickly took the pistol round and made a 4-0 lead against their Russian opponents’ defense. But C9 was not going to just stay and roll over and quickly claimed their first round with just a saved AWP and a few upgraded pistols, stealing the momentum away from the Mongolian squad.
Cloud9 gained momentum with Sergey “Ax1Le” Rykhtorov proving quite valuable by locking down the A bombsite. This helped C9 get to a stable 9-6 lead, but their stride was broken when Tuvshintugs “Annihilation” Nyamdorj performed a 1vs2 clutch just before the break.
When the sides switched, IHC retook the initiative by winning another pistol round, which was followed by a short streak to level out the scoreline. What followed was a continuous back and forth between the two teams, but Cloud9 made a few crucial mistakes in the later rounds, costing them the map, which ended in a 16-14 in favor of IHC.
After being shocked by IHC’s resistance on the first map, C9 picked Mirage in the hopes of shutting down the Mongolian team. The Russian team took an early 4-1 lead but IHC halted the Russians' advance to the B site with just a few Deagles to turn the momentum in their favor. The Mongolian team kept that inertia until the end of the half, entering the second half with a slight 7-8 deficit, courtesy of a Tengis “sk0R” Batjargal triple-kill in apartments.
C9 once again struggled to capitalize on their first pistol round victory of the series. IHC slowly turned the tides of battle on the offense and managed a slight 13-11 lead. From that point, C9s eco never truly recovered, and IHC fought their way to a 16-14 victory, ending the match with a hard-fought but convincing 2-0.
This somewhat unexpected turn of events sent Cloud9 packing from the IEM Katowice.
