FURIA eliminate Spirit from IEM Cologne; set to face Liquid for a spot in the playoffs

In a rematch from the Major quarter-final, FURIA managed to get revenge on Spirit — albeit with the Russian squad no longer fielding star AWPer Abdul “⁠degster⁠” Gasanov —, losing the opener of Nuke 12-16 before winning 16-14 on their Mirage pick and 16-10 on Overpass. FURIA will be hoping to complete their lower bracket run to the playoffs against Liquid.

The Brazilians continue their mini-revival in Cologne, growing into this lower bracket semi-final series after a shaky first map with Kaike “⁠KSCERATO⁠” Cerato and Yuri “⁠yuurih⁠” Santos in top form to help get them over the line. As for Spirit, they struggled to get enough going on their T sides of Mirage and Overpass, picking up only two rounds on each outside of pistol wins and conversions.

Nuke, Spirit‘s pick, opened the series, and FURIA made a decision that is rare in top-flight CS by choosing to start T-side. The decision did not pay off whatsoever, with the Brazilians struggling from round one to get any traction on their offense as their repeated upper hits were shut down time and time again.

Three rounds were all Andrei “⁠arT⁠” Piovezan and company could manage going into the second half, and whilst FURIA were much improved when they switched to defence, a 3-12 deficit was simply too much to overcome. Spirit eventually found the four rounds required, closing the map out 16-12.

The Brazilians began the offensive half of their own map, Mirage, more successfully, recovering from a lost pistol to take a 6-4 lead off the back of a mid-centric approach. What prevented them from taking more rounds were a couple of squandered anti-eco situations, the second of which allowed Spirit to wrestle back economic control and get to a 9-6 score at the break.

A lost pistol put FURIA on the back foot, but they recovered and started to put together a solid CT half — a combination of aggression and solid A holds providing the foundation. The Brazilians had to weather some tough moments, including a lost eco and repeated full A executes, but they did so and squeaked a 16-14 win to take us to Overpass.

The T-sides of FURIA improved with each map in the series and Overpass continued the trend, the Brazilians finding great success flushing out Robert “⁠Patsi⁠” Isyanov in connector to give themselves comprehensive map control. Spirit shuffled their defence by putting Patsi in bathrooms with more support and got a couple more rounds, but it was only enough for a 5-10 half.

Spirit won the pistol and converted to get themselves right back in the game, but it was virtually all they could muster as FURIA put up a defensive wall, only allowing two more to go the way of the Russians as they closed the map out 16-10 to win the series.