freakazoid-less Ghost drop opener in Tours
Things have not gone the way Ghost wanted them to in Tours, with the issues starting prior to the tournament even beginning. Yesterday, the organization shared that Ryan "freakazoid" Abadir would be missing the event due to "travel complications", with coach James "JamezIRL" Macaulay stepping into the server, and manager Phong "bee" Nguyen standing behind the team.
Things continued to look grim once Ghost got in the server against AVANGAR, as they went down 8-0 before stringing their sole two rounds of the first half together.
Ghost showed some signs of life once the sides switched, with in-game leader Josh "steel" Nissan opening the second half with an ace in the pistol round, which was followed up with another round win for the North Americans before AVANGAR brought the score to 14-4.
The pattern would repeat itself as Ghost took another two rounds, followed by an AVANGAR win, pushing the Kazakh team to match point at 15-6. Armed only with an AUG, Scout, and three pistols, Ghost managed to fend off an extremely slow round from AVANGAR to keep themselves alive a bit longer, forcing the CIS team onto a broken buy of their own.
Ghost managed to hold strong for five further rounds, running back the score all the way to 15-11 before being wiped out by a take from catwalk.
AVANGARGhost| AVANGAR |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Dzhami 'Jame' Ali |
25 - 9 | +16 | 90.8 | 88.9% | 1.57 |
 Alexey 'Qikert' Golubev |
23 - 18 | +5 | 99.3 | 81.5% | 1.40 |
| Bektiyar 'fitch' Bahytov |
20 - 16 | +4 | 86.4 | 70.4% | 1.18 |
| Timur 'buster' Tulepov |
18 - 12 | +6 | 60.8 | 85.2% | 1.10 |
 Sanjar 'SANJI' Kuliev |
18 - 15 | +3 | 61.6 | 66.7% | 1.10 |
| Ghost |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Matthew 'WARDELL' Yu |
21 - 18 | +3 | 78.6 | 77.8% | 1.18 |
| Joshua 'steel' Nissan |
17 - 22 | -5 | 73.7 | 51.9% | 0.92 |
 Jason 'neptune' Tran |
15 - 20 | -5 | 68.3 | 51.9% | 0.77 |
| Kenneth 'koosta' Suen |
10 - 20 | -10 | 38.5 | 63.0% | 0.65 |
| James 'JamezIRL' Macaulay |
7 - 24 | -17 | 37.1 | 51.9% | 0.46 |
Things are not likely to get easier for the North American side, as their next match will come against G2, who were upset by their countrymen FrenchFrogs earlier in the event.
