Cloud9 foil Evil Genuises plans
The mind games began before the pistol round started, with Cloud9 selecting to start on the T-side of Evil Genuises map pick, Inferno. EG responded after losing the pistol with a dominant win on the force buy. The Russian lineup returned the favor by winning a force of their own which led to a string of rounds and securing a 7-1 lead. A pistol buy would result in an unlikely second-round win for the North Americans. The retake practice that is supposedly a part of the "Blueprint" project came into play in their own string of rounds as they comfortably claimed a 4v4 retake on B. A 3v4 retake of the A site would go down to the wire, with Timothy "autimatic" Ta dinking Dmitriy "sh1ro" Sokolov, however, the Russian's AK-47 would prove superior. EG failed in the final round of the half, losing out after having a 5v3 advantage which gave C9 a 9-6 lead for the half.
EG opened their T-side looking strong as they won the pistol round and comfortably dealt with the follow-ups to even things up at 9-9. C9 reclaimed their lead on the first buy round of the half, but with EG responding on their next buy, round 22 would prove to be a breaking point for both sides with the money being low on each side. EG claimed this pivotal round, with only Timofey "interz" Yakushin surviving with an M4a1-s. Sanjar "neaLaN" İshakov and co. took the lead at 12-11, however, Vladislav "nafany" Gorshkov would clutch a 1v2 to send the EG economy back into disarray. Despite the strong showing, EG could not find a way back into the game with C9 closing out 16-12.
Cloud9's map pick of Dust2 opened up with an EG pistol round victory before a force buy would wreck the plans of EG in round two. EG probably felt a sense of Deja Vu back to their start on Inferno, with C9 marching out to an early 7-1 lead yet again. Round 9 would not be the round that EG came alive as C9 continued to plant their foot on the neck of the North American squad, moving out to a 10-1 lead off the back of an interz 1v2 clutch which concluded in a one-tap with his last bullet. EG claimed their second round in the least convincing fashion they possibly could, with sh1ro finding all three frags on a Tec-9 in a 1v3 clutch, but autimatic had just barely found the defuse in time.
EG prolonged the game for a few more rounds by winning their second pistol round, and third round in general, of the game. Young gun Jadan "HexT" Postma secured the follow-up round which looked a bit shaky, but C9 would quickly dispel any chances of an EG comeback by shutting down Tsvetelin "CeRq" Dimitrov's attempt at a 1v2. The rest of the game would prove a formality for the heavy favorites on their map pick, securing a 16-5 win and a 2-0 for the series.
Cloud9Evil Geniuses| Cloud9 |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Abay 'HObbit' Khassenov |
46 - 28 | +18 | 95.9 | 75.5% | 1.47 |
 Vladislav 'nafany' Gorshkov |
40 - 27 | +13 | 88.6 | 83.7% | 1.45 |
| Timofey 'interz' Yakushin |
37 - 24 | +13 | 82.1 | 83.7% | 1.33 |
| Dmitry 'sh1ro' Sokolov |
34 - 26 | +8 | 81.9 | 73.5% | 1.22 |
| Sergey 'Ax1Le' Rykhtorov |
34 - 30 | +4 | 71.6 | 79.6% | 1.15 |
| Evil Geniuses |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Vincent 'Brehze' Cayonte |
31 - 39 | -8 | 68.7 | 65.3% | 0.92 |
 Tsvetelin 'CeRq' Dimitrov |
25 - 38 | -13 | 57.3 | 65.3% | 0.79 |
| Timothy 'autimatic' Ta |
27 - 39 | -12 | 67.9 | 63.3% | 0.74 |
| Sanzhar 'neaLaN' Iskhakov |
23 - 39 | -16 | 63.5 | 55.1% | 0.71 |
 Jadan 'HexT' Postma |
26 - 39 | -13 | 58.1 | 55.1% | 0.64 |
Evil Geniuses look to rebound tomorrow when they play Liquid at 01:30PM.
