FaZe narrowly pass through Cloud9; to Katowice semifinal
A rematch of the Major Grand Final was the first IEM Katowice 2018 quarterfinal, with Cloud9 taking on FaZe. The two teams were set to face off on Overpass, Cache and Inferno.
Overpass began with FaZe picking up the pistol and anti-eco rounds on their CT-side, before pushing on for the first buy round. In fact, it was an incredibly European-heavy first half, with all but two rounds going the way of FaZe, as Finn "karrigan" Andersen was leading from the front for his team.
Although Cloud9 kept some rounds close, whenever they pushed it over the edge and claimed a round they were instantly reset by the likes of Ladislav "GuardiaN" Kovács. When Nikola "NiKo" Kovač secured the final round with an ace, Cloud9 had it all to do with the Europeans 13-2 up.
The second half saw FaZe pick up the eco round on their T-side, and a forcebuy from the Americans couldn't prevent FaZe reaching map point. A final forcebuy from Cloud9 staved off the end, with Tarik "tarik" Celik and Jake "Stewie2K" Yip pushing their team back.
But after that FaZe completed the demolition job, securing a 16-5 win.
Cache began with Cloud9's CT-side securing the pistol, thanks to four headshots from tarik, and first anti-eco round before losing the second to FaZe's pistols. The European side then pushed on to pick up the next two rounds, with NiKo taking three, before Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham secured a third round for his team.
But FaZe instantly answered back on the American side, with Olof "olofmeister" Kajbjer waking up to punish Cloud9, picking up an ace. From there the two sides were much more even, with Timothy "autimatic" Ta and NiKo trading the rounds out. But eventually the Europeans forced Cloud9 onto a poor economy and pushed on to take the lead at halftime, 10-5.
The second half began with GuardiaN picking up four fantastic kills on the pistol round, before FaZe moved on to secure the first anti-eco on their CT-side. Cloud9 picked up the next round on a full eco, and from there started to narrow the gap.
With Skadoodle and Will "RUSH" Wierzba performing at the top of their team, they swiftly took the lead on the second half after not dropping any rounds since winning the forcebuy. FaZe finally secured another round, but tarik and Stewie2K combined to put them back in the lead. From there the Americans claimed map point, and tied the series up 16-13.
Inferno remained, and Cloud9 secured the pistol and first anti-eco before GuardiaN secured a 1vs2 to win their force. From there FaZe started to take the lead, securing six rounds in a row with karrigan and co. showing form from the first map.
After that, Cloud9 came back with a run of rounds of their own. Cementing their CT-side, autimatic pulled out all the stops to start a run of six rounds to retake the lead. With Cloud9 securing their lead at the half, FaZe picked up the final round to make sure it was only a narrow one at 8-7.
The second half began with Cloud9's T-side taking the advantage, picking up the pistol and anti-eco rounds before taking down the first full buy. The two sides then traded rounds before FaZe secured two rounds in a row to put them on the advantage, sending Cloud9 to an eco as they were closing the gap on the map.
But as always, CZ-75's are too strong, and with NiKo accidentally burning himself too hard for Cloud9 to get back into the game. FaZe have some of the world's greatest players on their team, so with a forcebuy they complete a near-flawless round to put them back in contention, before destroying the Americans' economy in the following round.
A small bit of crash related drama later, and FaZe tied up the game thanks to some GuardiaN AWP'ing prowess. From there the Europeans secured match point on a knife edge, from which tarik secured the final round for his team. At 15-15, we were headed to overtime.
Overtime began with RUSH taking four kills to more or less single-handedly secure their start. The second round was much closer, but Stewie2K secured a 1vs2 around the bombsite to put them in the advantage. The third round saw Skadoodle take the clutch challenge, winning a 1vs3 on the A site for match point on 18-15.
GuardiaN picked up a 1vs1 clutch, where they were within a second of losing the game from Stewie2K's defuse. From there karrigan's men pushed all the way back to evening the game up once again, forcing an 18-18 scoreline, as FaZe were not looking to be knocked out just yet.
A similar theme occured in the second overtime, with GuardiaN pushing FaZe over the line twice as they kept their T-side extremely. NiKo secured an ace to make sure FaZe were 3-0 ahead in this second overtime. Cloud9 weren't looking to be knocked out just yet, with teamwork proving key to secure the first two rounds of their T-half. A strong retake from karrigan and rain saw FaZe take the first CT-round of overtime and secure a 22-20 win.
Cloud9FaZe| Cloud9 |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Tarik 'tarik' Celik |
67 - 66 | +1 | 75.9 | 70.7% | 1.06 |
| Timothy 'autimatic' Ta |
64 - 68 | -4 | 79.0 | 64.1% | 1.01 |
| Jake 'Stewie2K' Yip |
53 - 68 | -15 | 69.3 | 68.5% | 0.99 |
| William 'RUSH' Wierzba |
52 - 63 | -11 | 70.0 | 68.5% | 0.96 |
| Tyler 'Skadoodle' Latham |
56 - 65 | -9 | 62.2 | 71.7% | 0.94 |
| FaZe |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Nikola 'NiKo' Kovač |
79 - 56 | +23 | 94.4 | 76.1% | 1.37 |
 Ladislav 'GuardiaN' Kovács |
81 - 56 | +25 | 80.9 | 68.5% | 1.26 |
 Finn 'karrigan' Andersen |
73 - 67 | +6 | 84.6 | 72.8% | 1.16 |
 Olof 'olofmeister' Kajbjer |
52 - 59 | -7 | 67.1 | 73.9% | 0.98 |
 Håvard 'rain' Nygaard |
44 - 59 | -15 | 63.5 | 68.5% | 0.88 |
After this monster of a game, FaZe head to the semifinals against Astralis. The other quarterfinal of today will see Liquid take on NiP.
