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The third day of the IEM Cologne 2024 group stage featured six matches, with four more teams eliminated and another two advancing to the playoffs.
Team Vitality and MOUZ locked in their playoff spots for the Counter-Strike 2 tournament with wins over FaZe Clan and Complexity in their respective upper bracket semi-finals in Group B.
Vitality and FaZe played out a hard-fought three-map series, with the former taking the series 2-1 (8-13, 16-12, 13-9), even though their star player, Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut, had little influence on the clash.
FaZe picked Inferno for the first map, and with strong performances from key players like Robin “ropz” Kool and Håvard “rain” Nygaard, they took an early lead in the series with a 13-8 victory.
Although Vitality was forced into overtime on their map pick of Dust2, Shahar “flameZ” Shushan stepped up and carried the world number four to a 16-12 win, forcing a decider on Anubis.
The squads couldn’t be separated at halftime, locked at 6-6, before heading into the final half of the match.
However, Vitality, led by flameZ again, would win seven of the final 10 rounds on their terrorist side to close out the map and series, 13-9.
It's a reverse sweep from @TeamVitality to best @FaZeClan and secure themselves a spot in the #IEM Cologne Playoffs
8-13 Inferno
16-12 Dust 2
13-9 Anubis pic.twitter.com/ZveNmSxktV— Intel® Extreme Masters (@IEM) August 12, 2024
On the other side of the bracket, MOUZ took care of Complexity 2-0 (13-9, 13-11), with Jimi “Jimpphat” Salo, Ludvig “Brollan” Brolin, and Ádám “torzsi” Torzsás dominating for the world number three.
Torzsi, who led the way on Vertigo, recorded a server-high rating (1.39) and kills (19) to power MOUZ to a 13-9 win on Complexity’s map pick.
MOUZ picked Nuke, and even though it was much closer than the opening map, Brollan (1.54 rating) and Jimpphat (1.47 rating) led the way in a hard-fought 13-11 victory.
MOUZ will face Vitality in the Group B upper bracket final, with the winner locking in a semi-final spot and the loser having to settle for a quarter-final berth.
It's a not so simple 2-0 for @mousesports as they close out the series vs @ComplexityCS after a bit of back and forth.
13-9 Vertigo
13-11 Nuke pic.twitter.com/3pdL1WsgGc— Intel® Extreme Masters (@IEM) August 12, 2024
Earlier in the day, FURIA and Virtus.pro were eliminated from the IEM Cologne after suffering their second defeat of the group stage.
FURIA’s second straight 0-2 loss, this time against Team Liquid, ended their disappointing campaign in Cologne, while VP was knocked out by Falcons in a back-and-forth three-map series.
Finally, The Mongolz and Astralis had their runs ended by paiN Gaming and G2 Esports, respectively, in the lower bracket of Group A.
G2 continued their IEM Cologne resurgence with a 2-1 (13-1, 13-10, 13-3) victory, where the world number four dominated their Danish opponents on two of the three maps.
The Mongolz suffered a similar fate to their upper bracket loss on Sunday, as they claimed the opening map before losing the next two, going down 1-2 (13-16, 13-10, 13-8) against paiN.
The final day of the group stage will take place on Wednesday, with the final two teams locking in their spots to compete in the LANXESS Arena.
Wednesday’s IEM Cologne fixtures
- Falcons (+175) vs FaZe Clan (-250) @ 1:30pm CEST
- Team Liquid (-227.27) vs Complexity (+162) @ 1:30pm CEST
- G2 Esports (-625) vs paiN Gaming (+350) @ 3:45pm CEST
- Natus Vincere (-500) vs SAW (+333) @ 3:45pm CEST
- MOUZ (+100) vs Team Vitality (-138.89) @ 6:45pm CEST
- Winner of FaZe Clan/Falcons vs Winner of Complexity/Team Liquid @ 6:45pm CEST
