Imperial overcome Isurus
Fresh off their stunning qualification for their Home Major, Imperial come into the FiReLEAGUE Global Finals on a hot streak. In particular, Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo and Marcelo "chelo" Cespedes who were the real driving force behind the Brazilian's run. Standing against them in their opening match at Camp Nou would be Isurus, who had a decent showing themselves at the RMR beating out MIBR and ARCTIC to finish 2-3.
The opening map would be the Argentinian's pick of Dust2 but it got off to a rocky start for the Isurus side after losing the pistol and failing to convert the first gun round they found themselves 5-0 down. It looked like chelo would be continuing his fine RMR form as the newest addition to the Imperial side racked up twelve kills in the opening eight rounds.
However, Isurus showed that they wouldn't be washed away easy, after winning the second gun round of the half they followed it up with three more rounds to bring them to within one of their much-favoured opponents. It looked like they would tie up the game as they found themselves in a 3v3 post-plant in the B bomb site, however, two quick AWP kills from FalleN managed to wrestle the round away from Isurus and keep them at bay.
The two South American teams traded rounds and it left Imperial with a three-round advantage heading into the less favoured T-side. The Imperial team managed to win the pistol but failed to convert the following round and this allowed Isurus a foothold into the match. The Argentinians put together a formidable streak as Imperial failed to find any way through the stout defence.
By this point, chelo had begun to slow down and instead it was the old monster Fernando "fer" Alvarenga who sat at the top of the scoreboard for the experienced side, with 21 kills after 21 rounds. Despite fer's performance Imperial continued to struggle to find the holes in the Isurus's defence, who were playing some resolute team-based Counter-Strike, with no star performance.
After trading rounds back and forth the game was left in the balance in a tense 3v3 in the 27th round. Imperial attempted to take the A bombsite from long but with all the CT's waiting for them it looked to be an impossible task, however, a disjointed retake allowed the T side to even up the scores 14-14.
Isurus were forced onto a weak buy to avoid going up against match point but just 30 seconds into the round found themselves a man down. Maybe being so close to converting their map pick against the legends on the Imperial side had made Isurus nervous as the force decision failed to pay off, and despite having put up a strong defence they fell to Imperial 16-14.
Imperial proved to be strong on Overpass at the RMR, even showing this in their final map nailbiter against Complexity for qualification. Once again it would be a cosy hunting ground for the Brazilian side, starting on the less favoured T side they raced off into a 5-0 lead. Despite managing to pick up their first round the steamroll continued as Imperial pushed on to a 10-5 lead.
Surprisingly it was none of the usual suspects leading the charge for Imperial, instead, it was ever-smiling Vinicius "VINI" Figueiredo who topped the leaderboard sitting at 18 kills. The second half kicked off brighter for Isurus as they took the pistol and converted the follow up against the Brazilian force-buy.
The Argentinian team showed some traditional South American fight as they brought it all the way back to a tie game after sniffing out the Imperial defence with ease. Imperial looked like they were suffering some fatigue, it is worth noting that the match was played at nearly midnight in local time. Coming off the back of the RMR it would be no surprise if Imperial were struggling.
However some classic fer aggression on CT side helped the Brazilians drag themselves over the line, finishing up the match 16-12 and giving themselves a break day tommorow.
ImperialIsurus| Imperial |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Vinicius 'VINI' Figueiredo |
47 - 35 | +12 | 90.3 | 75.9% | 1.34 |
| Fernando 'fer' Alvarenga |
45 - 33 | +12 | 91.1 | 77.6% | 1.33 |
| Marcelo 'chelo' Cespedes |
42 - 34 | +8 | 77.4 | 67.2% | 1.10 |
| Gabriel 'FalleN' Toledo |
38 - 32 | +6 | 64.7 | 69.0% | 1.09 |
| Ricardo 'boltz' Prass |
32 - 39 | -7 | 72.2 | 62.1% | 0.97 |
| Isurus |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Luciano 'luchov' Herrera |
45 - 40 | +5 | 80.9 | 63.8% | 1.07 |
| Ignacio 'meyern' Meyer |
40 - 43 | -3 | 76.1 | 60.3% | 0.95 |
| Nicolás 'Noktse' Dávila |
35 - 41 | -6 | 64.9 | 63.8% | 0.90 |
| Roberto 'reversive' Themtham |
26 - 39 | -13 | 59.2 | 70.7% | 0.84 |
| Marcos 'deco' Amato |
27 - 42 | -15 | 54.8 | 58.6% | 0.69 |
