Outsiders crowned IEM Rio Champions
In a final where we were guaranteed to crown a first-time champion, and only Dzhami "Jame" Ali and Alexey "Qikert" Golubev having previously played in a Major final (Berlin 2019). Outsiders have long been praised for their fundamentals but criticised for their 'boring' CS would be facing off against their polar opposites in the Casper "cadiaN" Møller led Heroic. cadiaN and Heroic have built their success of their aggresive and front-footed play style which made for a interesting clash of styles for the Rio grand final.
Map one would be Outsiders pick and they decided to open the match on Mirage, a comfortable map for both teams. The teams started of trading rounds back and forth, with Heroic looking marginally the better side but that all changed when one of Outsider's new additions fame won a big 1v2 to tie the game 5-5.
From then on the first half continued to be closely fought and without Heroic feeling comfortable to make use of their classic aggression they only managed to post seven rounds on their CT side. It looked as if the Danes had completely lost themselves in the game, much like they had in the opening map against FURIA in the semi's, as Outsiders put up a rock solid defense to bring themselves onto the verge of closing out the win. A late resurgence from cadiaN's men was not enough to overturn the deficit and moving into map two it would be the CIS team that took a 1-0 lead.
Map two would be Overpass and Heroic started on the T side, on what has statistically been the most CT-sided map in Rio, and would hope for a quick start to be able to shake off the Mirage loss. With the impact being spread fairly evenly across the Outsiders team on Mirage, on Overpass it was Evgenii "FL1T" Lebedev doing all the heavy lifting as they ran into a 6-3 lead.
It looked like Outsiders really had the Danes locked out, with a failed A execute due to once again FL1T standing strong the Heroic T side were forced into a Deagle buy at 3-8. Desperation was setting in for the Heroic team as they failed to find any impact in the following gun round thanks to a David 'n0rb3r7' Danielyan 3k.
In a battle of Composure vs emotion it was the ever stoic Jame that was trumping the emotive cadiaN, all across the board Outsiders were just the better team and with a 12-3 lead going onto their T side it was surely a formality that Rio would be crowning them champions. Heroic started their CT side well with the pistol but would need the opening gun round to gain momentum.
The Danes had managed to work the all-important round in their favor with a 3v2 advantage but a massive double kill from FL1T gifted Jame a chance in the 1v1 and the AWPer showed just why he is nicknamed the master of time as he toyed with the clock to leave there no time for the CT's to defuse.
Map, Match and Major point was secured with a flawless round against the Heroic eco. Outsiders put the Heroic defense to the sword as they lost just the one player entering the B bombsite and closing out the 4v1 to win their first Major and be crowned Champions in Rio.
OutsidersHEROIC| Outsiders |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Evgenii 'FL1T' Lebedev |
52 - 31 | +21 | 112.6 | 77.6% | 1.63 |
| Petr 'fame' Bolyshev |
44 - 28 | +16 | 88.8 | 73.5% | 1.38 |
| Dzhami 'Jame' Ali |
37 - 23 | +14 | 73.1 | 83.7% | 1.26 |
| David 'n0rb3r7' Danielyan |
31 - 30 | +1 | 81.5 | 77.6% | 1.08 |
 Alexey 'Qikert' Golubev |
26 - 32 | -6 | 56.1 | 71.4% | 0.89 |
| HEROIC |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 René 'TeSeS' Madsen |
35 - 36 | -1 | 70.0 | 71.4% | 0.97 |
| Casper 'cadiaN' Møller |
28 - 36 | -8 | 64.4 | 59.2% | 0.87 |
| Jakob 'jabbi' Nygaard |
26 - 38 | -12 | 66.7 | 69.4% | 0.85 |
| Martin 'stavn' Lund |
28 - 39 | -11 | 67.7 | 63.3% | 0.78 |
| Rasmus 'sjuush' Beck |
26 - 42 | -16 | 63.4 | 65.3% | 0.77 |
