FURIAously moving on!
Brazil can breathe a heavy sigh of relief - they finally have a team that will be playing in the next stage of competition. With Imperial and 00 Nation falling early in 0-3 exits, the Riocentro was not exactly filled with optimism today as 9z fell to BIG and FURIA was going against the hot hands of Gamer Legion.
The match started off on FURIA's choice of Vertigo, where the experienced Brazilian team rushed out to a dominant start on their T-side and simply never let that go. With a comfortable 10-2 lead in the front end of the game, this was looking like FURIA was running away with the game. A first half ending of 11-4 confirmed that it should be all in their favor, but that wasn't looking like the case in the following half.
After losing the second-half pistol, FURIA rebounded with four rounds to establish a 15-6 lead. Despite some late heroics from Gamer Legion, it was no match for Andrei "arT" Piovezan's boys as they finished the map 16-9. Coming into map two it would be GamerLegions pick of Inferno a map they have a 100% win rate on over the past three months, compared to FURIA's 33% on the classic CS map.
Two kills from Mihai "iM" Ivan, including a knife kill, locked up the pistol round for the EU side and put a dampener on the crowd early into the second map. FURIA converted their second round force buy though and took off running, riding the wave of the Brazilian crowd all the way to a 7-1 lead and the team were feeling so good that arT was getting himself flashed into Banana to try and get some revenge knife kills.
FURIA maybe began to have a bit too much fun in front of their home crowd as they let their tight grip slip a little bit as the EU team racked up three quick rounds to bring the score up to 8-4. The Brazilian team closed out the half on fire, much to the delight of the Brazilian crowd, thanks to Kaike "KSCERATO" Cerato clutching a 1v2 to finish it out 11-4.
The second half went the complete opposite way, it was GamerLegion who ran rampant on the CT side taking the first six rounds of the half bringing them to within one round of the Brazilian team. FURIA finally managed to get a T round on the board and secured the following round as well. Spearheading the FURIA attack was their AWPer Rafael "saffee" Costa who was finally managing to put the big green to work after spending the majority of his time forced onto rifles due to the FURIA playstyle.
FURIA would close out the match in style, finishing it up 16-11 and sent them and the crowd dancing into the Legends stage with a home town team to root for. The loss will force the young EU team to have to return tomorrow to try and secure a spot in the Legends stage.
GamerLegionFURIA| GamerLegion |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Isak 'isak' Fahlén |
31 - 33 | -2 | 67.4 | 67.3% | 0.97 |
 Nicolas 'Keoz' Dgus |
31 - 39 | -8 | 70.2 | 63.5% | 0.94 |
 Mihai 'iM' Ivan |
28 - 35 | -7 | 53.4 | 55.8% | 0.82 |
 Frederik 'acoR' Gyldstrand |
25 - 36 | -11 | 53.3 | 61.5% | 0.73 |
 Kamil 'siuhy' Szkaradek |
24 - 44 | -20 | 68.0 | 61.5% | 0.71 |
| FURIA |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Yuri 'yuurih' Santos |
39 - 25 | +14 | 84.3 | 80.8% | 1.36 |
| Rafael 'saffee' Costa |
44 - 30 | +14 | 93.0 | 75.0% | 1.32 |
| Kaike 'KSCERATO' Cerato |
37 - 24 | +13 | 83.3 | 82.7% | 1.30 |
| André 'drop' Abreu |
34 - 28 | +6 | 60.8 | 75.0% | 1.11 |
| Andrei 'arT' Piovezan |
31 - 33 | -2 | 68.3 | 75.0% | 1.04 |
