ex-Naventic claim victory over GX, to Dust2.us Masters #1 playoffs
The decider matchup of Group A saw GX and ex-Naventic facing off for the second slot in the playoffs of Dust2.us Masters #1. The teams chose to play on Mirage, Cobblestone, and Train, with ex-Naventic's pick of Mirage coming up first in the series.
ex-Naventic immediately showed why Mirage was their map pick as double kills from Jake "kaboose" McDonald and Giovanni "Fighter" Leo in the pistol round gave their side the lead. A trading of rounds followed as GX and ex-Naventic force-bought against one another, but the streak was halted by GX as the Shawn "witmer" Taylor-led squad took four rounds in a row. The ex-Naventic lads were able to recover as they secured three additonal rounds towards the end of the half, and the final two rounds were split between the two sides to end the first half 9-6.
The second pistol round of the series saw GX forced into retaking B site despite being a man down, in a three-on-four. A one-on-one clutch from Matt "Pollo" Wilson gave GX the round in the end, but this time ex-Naventic were able to answer back with a force-buy of their own. Although a strange M4 buy came through from Keven "AZK" Lariviere while the remainder of his team was saving, GX took their economy management a little more seriously and conceded two additional rounds to ex-Naventic in order to field a proper buy on their first gun round. Their monetary forsight worked wonders as they locked ex-Naventic out of bombsites, swiftly moving up to 16 rounds to close out the map.
Cobblestone was a whole different story as ex-Naventic kicked into a completely different gear: the players took turns laying waste to GX's offense, and with each round that GX won a reset immediately followed. Multi-kill rounds from Fighter, kaboose, and Alex "aproto" Protopapas repeatedly lay waste to GX, and their round wins were sparse. Only three rounds were put up by GX on their T side, giving them little room for error as they moved into the second half.
A must-win pistol round confronted GX, and they took it in stride to grab their initial trio of rounds; however, they were unable to follow through once ex-Naventic held rifles of their own, and aproto & co. were able to close out the match without any real contest from GX.
Much like the first half of Cobble, ex-Naventic once again moved their way up to five unanswered rounds before a response from GX came through. The difference this time around was that GX stabilized their economy by following up their first round win with a second, building on their economy and avoiding an immediate reset thanks to Braxton "swag" Pierce finding three frags on the AWP. witmer built upon swag's AWP performance by finding three for himself in the ensuing round, which finally saw ex-Naventic's economy drained enough to force out an eco. Ex-Naventic used their eco round to test an A site execute fake to take B, but swag shut down four players to lock down his bombsite. He wasn't able to repeat his heroics in the following round when ex-Naventic went into a full B site execute, taking the site and outlasting GX in a two-on-four.
GX seemed to have warmed up as they re-stabilized their CT side — an immediate reset to ex-Naventic's economy saw GX tear ex-Naventic's executes apart. Their initial 0-5 deficit was more than made up for as they closed out the half 9-6.
Tyson "TenZ" Ngo doubled his kills in the final pistol round of the series as he secured four frags for himself, giving ex-Naventic a chance to redeem themselves after failing to capitalize on their lead. The standard three round lead followed for ex-Naventic, but AZK helped GX put a stop to ex-Naventic early by finding three frags and closing out their first T side round. A three-man push in brown halls by ex-Naventic gave the CTs the drop on GX players who were setting up in popdog — GX's economy was in peril, and two opening P250 frags from swag wasn't enough to swing the ensuing eco round into their favor. Another trio of rounds went the way of ex-Naventic until Michael "dapr" Gulino halted them in their tracks once again, finding three frags to lock down the outer bombsite for GX. Two CZ kills from Fighter gave his team a chance during their eco round, but the post-plant two-on-two went GX's way to fully crush the economy of ex-Naventic. GX used this late-game reset to push themselves up to 14 rounds, but a final push from ex-Naventic had them claim match point before swag & co. could work their way there. GX had no intention of being eliminated without a fight, and took the final round of the half to take us to overtime.
GX's T side was picked apart as ex-Naventic took full control of the map in overtime — aproto began OT by shutting down GX's aggression with three frags, and closed out the half with another trio of frags to ensure a clean sweep for his side. GX once again showed why Train was going their way during the first half as they returned the favor to ex-Naventic, finding their own 3-0 clean sweep on the CT side. Saving themselves from from elimination, GX brought the match into a second overtime.
The first round of double overtime went the way of ex-Naventic as the CT domination was brought to a close, although GX were still able to take a single round of their own to give themselves a chance. The third round of the first half of overtime also went the way of ex-Naventic, giving them their first major T side lead since the first half of regulation. From here ex-Naventic were able to close out the match by crushing GX in the ensuing two rounds, with TenZ picking up four kills in the final round to bring the series home.
GXex-Naventic| GX |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Braxton 'swag' Pierce |
69 - 61 | +8 | 81.9 | 73.0% | 1.15 |
 Keven 'AZK' Lariviere |
65 - 66 | -1 | 84.8 | 71.9% | 1.07 |
| Matt 'Pollo' Wilson |
64 - 62 | +2 | 73.6 | 64.0% | 1.02 |
| Shawn 'witmer' Taylor |
49 - 60 | -11 | 59.2 | 65.2% | 0.88 |
| Michael 'dapr' Gulino |
46 - 67 | -21 | 66.6 | 62.9% | 0.85 |
| ex-Naventic |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alex 'aproto' Protopapas |
72 - 55 | +17 | 86.0 | 77.5% | 1.21 |
| Jake 'kaboose' McDonald |
71 - 59 | +12 | 79.6 | 71.9% | 1.20 |
| Daniel 'impsta' Whaley |
60 - 61 | -1 | 75.9 | 68.5% | 1.03 |
| Giovanni 'Fighter' Leo |
60 - 61 | -1 | 72.3 | 70.8% | 1.01 |
| Tyson 'TenZ' Ngo |
51 - 60 | -9 | 72.4 | 67.4% | 0.94 |
GX have been eliminated from our first tournament here at Dust2.us, while ex-Naventic have progressed to the playoffs. Tomorrow will see our Group B matches played out as we look to determine the final two playoff spots for Dust2.us Masters #1.
