No Grand Finals for Complexity
It was with touching distance as Complexity had secured the first map of the series, but it fell just outside of arms reach. The Americans failed to beat one of their most difficult teams in MOUZ as the organization has lost for a fourth time in a row against the Europeans. While the loss here in Malta on Saturday is a bitter pill to swallow, it shouldn't be ignored that Complexity is coming right back into form following a slow end to 2023 and a disappointing finish at the 2024 PGL Copenhagen Major.
Vertigo was always going to go Complexity's way. They have not lost on that map in the last few months and is easily becoming the world's greatest team on the two-floor high-rise. The squad did slightly struggle in the beginning as they fell behind 2-5, but from then on it was the Hank "hallzerk" Fender show as the Ohama, Nebraska native had one of his best matches in a while.
He activated on the T-side and helped his squad get five rounds in a row to come away with a 7-5 lead. The CT-side was where he became even better as his 2.07 HLTV Rating on the defense was the best amongst everyone and Complexity cruised to a 13-8 map win.
Nuke was a much tougher map for the Americans as they struggled to get their CT-side to be a thorn in the side of the Europeans. Complexity struggled to hold their sites and found themselves constantly on the backfoot compared to MOUZ's ability to weave through their defenses. They only managed four rounds before switching to the significantly weaker T-side.
It certainly wasn't pretty, but Complexity did find themselves actually posing as a threat to the Europeans and even staged a late comeback attempted, only to be shut down 9-13 and forced to go to Ancient.
Ancient was a disaster for the Americans as they could simply not find their footing on the T-side. It was a struggle to break through the Europeans' defenses, as they held fast and prevented Complexity from gaining any consistent momentum outside of their pistol win. With only four rounds on the offense, the team was desperate to find answers, only to be blanked while playing defense and sent home just before the Grand Final with a 12-4 loss on the final map.