FURIA crushes EG’s playoff hopes
Group D came into the last day of its stage with only two spots defined, the first place for Cloud9 and the last place for Movistar Riders. The remaining four teams, Liquid, EG, FURIA, and Eternal Fire entered the server fighting for their life. Between the many scenarios our own spreadsheet man, Scoobster, showed us yesterday, there is only one where both NA teams qualify.
For that scenario to become a real situation, Liquid would have to beat C9 and EG would have to clean sweep FURIA. Very heavy weight to pull for the Evil Geniuses squad, but where there is will there is a way.
EG started the series in Overpass, their pick. The pistol round saw Sanzhar "neaLaN" Iskhakov opening the hostilities and giving his team the T-side first round. FURIA then opted for an eco round but were able to surprise the North Americans and tie the game up. EG was then able to reply in the same manner. After the first three rounds, neaLaN propelled the team to three rounds in a row. By the end of the sixth round, the 22-year-old had twelve kills to his name. FURIA then managed to tie the game up 5-5. This balance would culminate in an 8-7 half in favor of EG.
The second half started with the T-side pistol win once again, and with both teams winning force buys. After going back and forth, the score was 11-11, but FURIA managed to run away with the match and took map one with a 16-11 result.
Things were looking bad for EG's aspirations of making it through to the playoffs. The map one loss meant the NA team needed to win this series and hope for Liquid to lose against C9. Things started off well in Nuke, with EG winning the CT-side pistol round and three more after that. Despite the early lead, FURIA managed to make this a competitive half, which ended with an 8-7 for EG, just like Overpass.
The second half began with the North Americans winning yet another pistol round and the eco from the Brazilians. EG managed to have an 11-7 lead but lost to a force buy from FURIA. The black panthers would go on a streak of their own, with six rounds in a row, on the back of a great performance from Kaike "KSCERATO" Cerato. After taking a 12-11 lead, FURIA only lost one round until the end of the game. The map ended with a 16-12 result in favor of Brazil's #1 team.
With this loss, the EG squad is eliminated from ESL Pro League season 16. The team had some good performances and showed a lot of improvement compared to its last outings.
FURIA had already clinched playoffs after winning map one, but with the 2-0 result, the Brazilians granted themselves second place in the group.
FURIAEvil Geniuses| FURIA |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Kaike 'KSCERATO' Cerato |
55 - 28 | +27 | 99.8 | 80.0% | 1.64 |
| Rafael 'saffee' Costa |
41 - 30 | +11 | 73.7 | 76.4% | 1.27 |
| Yuri 'yuurih' Santos |
38 - 33 | +5 | 70.9 | 78.2% | 1.11 |
| Andrei 'arT' Piovezan |
34 - 38 | -4 | 79.6 | 72.7% | 1.09 |
| André 'drop' Abreu |
30 - 33 | -3 | 64.0 | 70.9% | 0.91 |
| Evil Geniuses |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Sanzhar 'neaLaN' Iskhakov |
44 - 45 | -1 | 83.0 | 63.6% | 1.04 |
 Tsvetelin 'CeRq' Dimitrov |
30 - 37 | -7 | 65.6 | 65.5% | 0.88 |
 Jadan 'HexT' Postma |
31 - 38 | -7 | 65.5 | 67.3% | 0.87 |
 Timothy 'autimatic' Ta |
34 - 40 | -6 | 68.1 | 67.3% | 0.86 |
| Vincent 'Brehze' Cayonte |
23 - 39 | -16 | 53.9 | 54.5% | 0.74 |
