SK get n0thing in Belo Horizonte as mousesports move on to grand final
SK have been eliminated from ESL One Belo Horizonte following an 0-2 loss to mousesports, who are attending the tournament with Jordan "n0thing" Gilbert in place of their star AWPer Tomáš "oskar" Šťastný.
The series began on SK's pick of Dust2, where the Brazilians found themselves outmatched by Chris "chrisJ" De Jong and n0thing's stellar CT side defense. A 4-0 lead went the way of mousesports before SK replied with a round of their own, and despite being immediately reset SK went on to win an additional 3 rounds.
Having almost tied the game up 5-4, SK seemed to be staying competitive on their T side; however, it was here that Robin "ropz" Kool also came to life. Together chrisJ, n0thing, and ropz held down every facet of the map, shutting out SK for the remainder of the half to claim an 11-4 CT side half with ease. chrisJ especially stood out on the AWP, finding opening frags on SK players eight times and only being taken down once in return.
The second pistol round also went mousesports' way to put the Europeans in touching distance of taking the first map. SK made a last ditch effort to bring the map back into their favour by securing the first gun round, and although they scrapped together the two ensuing rounds, the lead was too far gone and mousesports breezed to a 16-7 finish.
Train kicked off with mousesports once again taking the opening pistol round for themselves. The standard 3-0 lead went their way, but once SK picked up rifles, their CT side defense was almost impenetrable. The European side of mousesports scrounged together a meager two rounds in the rest of the half, with SK leading 10-5 as they transitioned to the T side.
SK's T side left a lot to be desired — they seemed set to close out the map in quick fashion as they won their first pistol round of the series, but a lackluster last second outside bombsite hit against mousesports' force-buy would prove to be the first nail in the coffin for the Brazilians.
With their economy in tatters, SK fared even worse than mousesports when trying to open up bombsites. Multiple hits by SK with limited time on the clock and shoddy teamwork overall saw n0thing, chrisJ, and ropz once again come to life to shut SK out of the match, with the Brazilians finding only one additional round before they were swiftly seen out of the server by mousesports.
Much like their last appearance in Brazil, SK won't have the opportunity to lift the trophy in front of their home crowd. Instead, mousesports and FaZe are set to duke it out in a best-of-five grand final, with the match kicking off at 4:30 PM EDT.
SK's next appearance will be at ESL One Cologne, where the team will likely debut under the mibr brand. The $300,000 event is set to kick off on July 3rd, and will see the likes of Astralis, FaZe, Na`Vi, mousesports, and Ninjas in Pyjamas duke it out for one of the eight playoffs slots to play in the LANXESS Arena.