M80 fall to Falcons in messy 2-0 loss
M80 have been knocked out of the BLAST Premier Fall Showdown via a 2-0 loss to Falcons, with the struggling European side overpowering M80 despite moments of competitiveness from the NA side.
The series began on M80's pick of Ancient, with the first two rounds going the way of Falcons as they won their CT-side pistol and the following round. The next two rounds were evenly split before M80 went on a dominant run, winning seven out of the next eight rounds in a row on their T-side to claim a really confident 8-4 lead heading into the second half.
This confidence quickly evaporated however, as Falcons mounted their own near-perfect T-side, winning a second pistol round to power a 9-1 T-side to take Inferno 13-9, crushing any hopes of a quick series for M80. During the second half of Ancient, Fritz "slaxz-" Dietrich was the only player putting up a significant number of kills while Mason "Lake" Snaderson was notably absent with one kill.
Moving into Dust2, the beginning of the map was a horrific start for M80 as their European opponents started their T-side with a 6-0 run of rounds as Álvaro "SunPayus" García was deadly on the big green gun. Fortunately for M80 they finally found some ground in round seven thanks to sussing out Falcons preference for A hits, using that information to truly put up a fight to end the half with the score evened up at 6-6.
In the second half, Dust2 truly became a brawl after M80 found their first pistol round of the series, with both teams taking turns claiming runs of rounds before M80 were the first to find map point at 12-10. Unfortunately for M80, despite being close to forcing the series onto Anubis they startled to crumble by allowing Falcons to find overtime before a close overtime allowed the Europeans to take the map 16-14, thus knocking M80 out.