- The Ukrainian team lost 1-2 to FaZe and now leaves the tournament
- FaZe has eliminated a second team from the tournament so far, the first one being Vitality
- The teams dominated on their respective map picks, but it was FaZe who had two picks
Natus Vincere lacked star AWPer s1mple in their match against FaZe at IEM Sydney, which played a huge role in the Ukrainian team leaving the event early.
FaZe Defeat NaVi
IEM Sydney promised to give fans many impressive matches and it is delivering as we speak. Earlier today., the tournament saw two favorites, FaZe and Natus Vincere, go up against each other, but only one could emerge victorious. As it turns out, it was the former who won, eliminating NaVi from the Sydney event.
Finn “karrigan” Andersen and company therefore continue forward and leave the lower btacket in which they were sent to the previous days. It was not an easy battle against NaVi, despite the Ukrainian team missing its star, AWPer Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, who could not make it to the tournament and play alongside his team. It took FaZe three maps filled with a lot of back-and-forth to defeat NaVi and send them home.
NaVi had to play with Andrey “B1ad3” Gorodenskiy, the team’s coach, who played in place of s1mple. It seems he’s rusty, considering he had a 0.58 rating during the match, well below the average for other players. Despite that, it seems that at least fans liked the fact to see him play in the servers once again.
Meanwhile, FaZe scored a second team they eliminated from the event. Yesterday, FaZe eliminated Vitality from IEM Sydney in a similarly close-fought match. FaZe now have one final group stage match for all of the marbles against GamerLegion, with the loser of the match going home while the winner gets a spot in the first round of the playoffs.
How Did The Match Go?
It was FaZe’s turn to pick the first map and they chose Overpass, on which they dominated their opponents going on a 6-0 rampage on the attacking side. NaVi, however, finally responded with an equally strong CT side, winning the next six rounds until the sides switched. However, when that happened, they could not replicate the performance. Unfortunately for the Ukrainian team, FaZe dominated the half and quickly finished the map with a 13-7.
NaVi, who recently revealed a new Junior CS2 roster, picked Mirage as the second map, and similarly to their opponents, dominated. Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen and Valeriy “b1t” Vakhovskiy dominated the scoreboard while Mihai “iM” Ivan found impactful openers on both sides. Even B1ad3 got a triple in the last rounds of the map, which ended in a 13-4 as NaVi absolutely dominated FaZe.
However, the Ukrainian team would not be able to replicate this performance on the final map, Inferno. It quickly became FaZe’s playground as they got off to a 7-1 lead on the CT side. NaVi was able to string a few more rounds before the first half ended, but FaZe continued to dominate them once the sides switched. The American team quickly wrapped up the map with a 13-7 to take the match 2-1 and ensure their survival in the tournament.