FaZe demolish Cloud9 in New York semifinal
The brawl between the NA favorites and the international phenomenon started on Mirage. Trades went back and forth on the pistol round, but Nikola "NiKo"Kovač and Olof "olofmeister" Kjabjer cleaned up the 2v2. Amazing play by olofmester on catwalk led to FaZe securing a 2nd round, but despite a 4K in the 3rd round, Cloud9 barely secured their 1st round. FaZe then locked down the A bomb site to reset C9's economy, and other than a scare in round 6, picked up 3 more rounds.
Cloud9 then attempted to take the B site, but again they got close but couldn't close the round. A fast mid play from Jake "Stewie2K" Yip, broke open the A site and Cloud9 finally secured their second round. Again, Stewie got some key kills to convert their round and force FaZe onto an eco. On the next buy round, FaZe and Ladislav "GuardiaN" Kovács put themselves back on track, and immediately puts the American team onto eco.
The rest of the half was all FaZe, as olofmeister and GuardiaN racked up kills, and even Finn "karrigan" Andersen pulled out the auto-sniper to make an 11-4 half. FaZe utilized a classic B rush, and despite great refrags by Cloud9, secured another pistol round. Many great rounds by Håvard "rain" Nygaard powered FaZe to a quick 16-4 victory.
Overpass kicked off with masterful pistol and rifle play by rain which led to the Europeans taking the first 3 rounds. The first gun round went to Cloud9 with a solid A hold from Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham. However, on round 5, FaZe picked apart Cloud9 one by one and reset Tarik "tarik" Celik's boys again. NiKo and co. kept up the pressure and extended FaZe's lead to 8 rounds. Stewie2K and Will "RUSH" Wierzba eventually got fed up, and an aggressive play in connector led to a second round for C9.
Once again, Cloud9's economy was insantly destroyed as FaZe won the next round, giving themselves even more momentum. Stewie2K once again was the initiator to try and get his team back into the game, and in round 14, his heroics led to another round with help from RUSH. Cloud9 were literally unable to convert any rounds, and FaZe ended the first half with 11 T rounds.
Following the theme of this match, FaZe easily took the pistol round with great kills by rain. GuardiaN, with his underrated impact in these maps, helped to secure the 14th and 15th rounds for his team. The final round ended with a solid A defense, completely shutting down Cloud9 16-3.
FaZe will now move on to face Liquid in the best of five grand final tomorrow.