IEM Katowice: Renegades and NRG to New Legends, FURIA and Cloud9 set to face each other
The IEM Katowice Major has moved into it's second day, with all four North American teams still in the action. Renegades and NRG had the potential of moving straight to the New Legends stage, while FURIA were in a best-of-three to sustain their tournament life. Cloud9 on the other hand were in the middle of the bracket, and had a best-of-one to see which pool they'd be in for round four.
The first North American team in play was Cloud9, who faced ViCi in on Inferno. As part of the 1-1 round this was a best-of-one, which did not go well for the Americans. The Chinese team picked up the opening two rounds on the CT-side, and retained control throughout the majority of the half. Cloud9 couldn't get more than one round together, with ZhiHong "aumaN" Liu taking a strong 4k hold on the A site.
ViCi kept rolling, all the way to a 11-4 lead. The second half began with Cloud9 picking up the pistol round, but straight away ViCi picked up the immediate forcebuy and reset their opponents. The Chinese team rolled on to map point, but even as Cloud9 picked up one round to delay, it was WingHei "Freeman" Cheung, who ended with 107.9 ADR, who finished the match with a 3k to win 16-6.
Cloud9ViCi| Cloud9 |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Robin 'flusha' Rönnquist |
21 - 18 | +3 | 97.1 | 63.6% | 1.13 |
 Fabien 'kioShiMa' Fiey |
9 - 16 | -7 | 52.3 | 50.0% | 0.61 |
 Timothy 'autimatic' Ta |
7 - 20 | -13 | 61.3 | 54.5% | 0.53 |
| Jordan 'Zellsis' Montemurro |
10 - 18 | -8 | 48.1 | 40.9% | 0.52 |
| William 'RUSH' Wierzba |
5 - 21 | -16 | 39.0 | 45.5% | 0.35 |
| ViCi |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Andrew 'kaze' Khong |
22 - 10 | +12 | 98.4 | 90.9% | 1.76 |
 WingHei 'Freeman' Cheung |
22 - 10 | +12 | 107.9 | 86.4% | 1.69 |
 ZhiHong 'aumaN' Liu |
20 - 12 | +8 | 87.6 | 81.8% | 1.42 |
| WeiJie 'zhokiNg' Zhong |
16 - 11 | +5 | 89.4 | 77.3% | 1.36 |
| Zhuo 'advent' Liang |
13 - 10 | +3 | 63.7 | 90.9% | 1.18 |
Renegades were up next, taking on ENCE in the 2-0 matches. The best-of-three saw them draw Nuke, Mirage and Inferno. It was the Australians who opened on Nuke's CT-side, before ENCE reset them and forced the next two rounds. But the game was Renegades' from that point out, with Jay "Liazz" Tregillgas taking down three to retake the B site assisting in their long run.
With Renegades 11-4 up at the break, the Australians opened the second half with the first three rounds, before ENCE retaliated with three of their own. Justin "jks" Savage put Renegades onto map point with a 3k retake, before Joakim "jkaem" Myrbostad picked up four to win the opening map 16-7.
Mirage was a much closer match. The first half opened with ENCE taking the pistol and opening anti-eco, before Sean "Gratisfaction" Kaiwai picked up a 3k to place Renegades on the board. From there the two teams traded sets of rounds, with the Finns always going back ahead after a rally from Renegades. ENCE went to the break 8-7 ahead.
The second half started with ENCE extending their lead to 11-7, before Renegades narrowed the lead once again with their own streak of three rounds. ENCE prevented the Australians from taking the lead initially, but after that Renegades chased the win. Five rounds in a row placed them on map point, and although ENCE managed one last round to potentially cause overtime, Renegades went through to the Major (proper) with a 16-14 score.
ENCERenegades| ENCE |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Aleksi 'Aleksib' Virolainen |
35 - 40 | -5 | 79.5 | 67.9% | 1.05 |
| Jere 'sergej' Salo |
33 - 37 | -4 | 76.4 | 69.8% | 1.04 |
| Sami 'xseveN' Laasanen |
31 - 37 | -6 | 62.3 | 71.7% | 0.88 |
| Aleksi 'allu' Jalli |
31 - 38 | -7 | 64.8 | 58.5% | 0.85 |
| Jani 'Aerial' Jussila |
31 - 42 | -11 | 61.0 | 58.5% | 0.77 |
| Renegades |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Justin 'jks' Savage |
51 - 34 | +17 | 97.8 | 75.5% | 1.38 |
 Sean 'Gratisfaction' Kaiwai |
40 - 31 | +9 | 82.3 | 79.2% | 1.28 |
| Jay 'Liazz' Tregillgas |
38 - 28 | +10 | 74.1 | 81.1% | 1.23 |
 Joakim 'jkaem' Myrbostad |
35 - 34 | +1 | 64.7 | 73.6% | 1.02 |
| Aaron 'AZR' Ward |
30 - 34 | -4 | 67.1 | 73.6% | 0.98 |
In the elimination match, FURIA came up against Spirit on Mirage, Nuke and Cache. The Brazilians were monsters in the first half of Mirage, racing 8-0 ahead before their Russian opponents could even pick up a round. Even with that, FURIA stormed to a 13-2 lead. The second half started with FURIA picking up the pistol round, before Spirit secured six rounds in a row to return with a shout in the game. But FURIA weren't going to let it by, and with a small ping-pong won it 16-9.
Nuke was up next, and FURIA opened this game with the first four rounds before Spirit came into the game and put their stamp on Nuke. Having been 5-3 ahead, FURIA lost it after Dmitry "S0tF1k" Forostyanko's 1v2 clutch sent the Russian team into a six round win streak and on their way to nine rounds, before Kaike "KSCERATO" Cerato won a 1v2 to see his team limit the score to just 9-6.
With Spirit having raced up to 12-6 after the pistol round, the Brazilians utilized the favored CT-side to take a solid seven rounds in a row to go 13-12 ahead. Spirit weren't out of it just yet, and pushed on with two rounds to go 14-12. But FURIA wanted to remain at the Major, and three rounds at the end saw them do that with a 16-14 score.
SpiritFURIA| Spirit |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Dmitriy 'Dimaoneshot' Bandurka |
40 - 43 | -3 | 75.3 | 63.6% | 1.00 |
 Pavel 'COLDYY1' Veklenko |
36 - 42 | -6 | 79.1 | 58.2% | 0.97 |
| Vadim 'DavCost' Vasilyev |
32 - 35 | -3 | 67.5 | 63.6% | 0.91 |
| Viktor 'sdy' Orudzhev |
33 - 41 | -8 | 60.9 | 61.8% | 0.76 |
| Dmitry 'S0tF1k' Forostyanko |
22 - 42 | -20 | 54.0 | 58.2% | 0.72 |
| FURIA |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Yuri 'yuurih' Santos |
44 - 36 | +8 | 94.6 | 74.5% | 1.29 |
| Kaike 'KSCERATO' Cerato |
43 - 28 | +15 | 70.1 | 74.5% | 1.23 |
| Rinaldo 'ableJ' Moda Junior |
46 - 31 | +15 | 87.1 | 74.5% | 1.23 |
| Vinicius 'VINI' Figueiredo |
40 - 34 | +6 | 78.3 | 67.3% | 1.13 |
| Andrei 'arT' Piovezan |
30 - 35 | -5 | 63.4 | 63.6% | 0.94 |
NRG had the last match to finish tonight. They faced TYLOO on Inferno, Mirage and Train for a spot at the Major's New Legends Stage. Inferno commenced with NRG going on a six round streak, with Tsvetelin "CeRq" Dimitrov and Ethan "Ethan" Arnold taking 1v2s in two successive rounds. But after that it was all TYLOO for the first half, as they claimed all nine of the CT rounds in the first half for a 9-6 lead, helped along by Hansel "BnTeT" Ferdinand's strong performances.
The second half opened like the first, with NRG taking the opening five rounds to wrestle back the lead at 11-9. The next few rounds were scrappy and traded, with neither team taking control until TYLOO linked three rounds together to be the first to hit 14 rounds. But NRG, and especially Vincent "Brehze" Cayonte, weren't looking to lose their map pick as they picked up the final three rounds for a 16-14 win. Brehze himself performed the strongest on the server, hitting 38 kills with 102.5 in ADR and a deserved 1.78 rating.
Mirage followed, and like the previous map NRG started the strongest by taking the opening five rounds, the fifth including a Brehze 4k. From there TYLOO stuck in a mid-half claim to four rounds, where NRG were barely able to make an impact, but the Americans came in strong by the end to stick at a strong 10-5 lead.
The second half started in favor of the Chinese team, taking the first two rounds, but not before NRG claimed the next five to go into series point. The next six rounds went awry for NRG, as TYLOO claimed all of them to prevent NRG's win and look like they had the potential to force the game into overtime. But that wasn't to be, as NRG eventually pulled out what was required and took the 16-13 win, sending them to the New Legends stage next week. Brehze was once again the stand-out performer with 34 kills, 114.0 ADR and a 1.77 rating. The strongest performer at the Major so far.
NRGTYLOO| NRG |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vincent 'Brehze' Cayonte |
72 - 38 | +34 | 108.2 | 81.4% | 1.77 |
| Ethan 'Ethan' Arnold |
37 - 37 | +0 | 83.6 | 71.2% | 1.14 |
 Damian 'daps' Steele |
37 - 41 | -4 | 71.5 | 74.6% | 0.98 |
 Tsvetelin 'CeRq' Dimitrov |
31 - 33 | -2 | 63.6 | 67.8% | 0.95 |
| Jacob 'FugLy' Medina |
23 - 38 | -15 | 48.4 | 66.1% | 0.73 |
| TYLOO |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Hansel 'BnTeT' Ferdinand |
46 - 38 | +8 | 87.3 | 69.5% | 1.23 |
| Kevin 'xccurate' Susanto |
38 - 33 | +5 | 65.7 | 76.3% | 1.07 |
| YuLun 'Summer' Cai |
39 - 43 | -4 | 71.4 | 62.7% | 0.92 |
| YuanZhang 'Attacker' Sheng |
35 - 44 | -9 | 63.1 | 59.3% | 0.88 |
| HaoWen 'somebody' Xu |
29 - 42 | -13 | 61.7 | 59.3% | 0.83 |
These results mean that Cloud9 and FURIA both remain in the New Challengers stage, and both on 1-2 records in tomorrow's matches. NRG and Renegades are both through as the first teams in the New Legends stage, with 3-0 records.
The round four matches are to be split over the next two days. The 2-1 matches are to be played tomorrow, with the 1-2 elimination matches played on Saturday. These matches are, with times in EST, as follows:
| 2-1 Round (Friday) | |
| Vitality -vs- ViCi |
7:00 AM |
TYLOO -vs-  AVANGAR |
10:00 AM |
| ENCE -vs- Winstrike |
1:30 PM |
| 1-2 Round (Saturday) | |
| NiP -vs- Vega Squadron |
7:00 AM |
| G2 -vs- fnatic |
10:00 AM |
| Cloud9 -vs- FURIA |
1:30 PM |
