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March 25, 2021
CS:GO
North America survives their first day in the group of death
Group D began with Team Liquid, Evil Geniuses, and Virtus.pro all picking up wins.
Virtus.pro, an early favorite in Group D considering recent performances, started their groups stage run with a 2-0 sweep over Endpoint. In the first map of the map, Inferno, the CIS squad kept a healthy lead as Mareks “YEKINDAR” Galinskis rekindled his dominant performance to finish with 25 frags and 108 ADR. Overpass seemed similarly one-sided in Virtus.pro’s favor as they finished the first half, however a 9 round slip up facilitated by Robin “robiin” Sjogren almost saw the game slip from VP’s grasp. Ultimately, Endpoint could not complete the comeback as they fell 16-13.
Both of Virtus.pro’s top performers from IEM Katowice 2021, Dhami “Jame” Ali and YEKINDAR, both had promising individual performances. Avoiding the early upset was critical to the CIS team’s early success and bodes well for their projected positive finish. Endpoint, as one of the teams predicted to finish at the body of this stacked group, will have to continue their uphill march though now at a one game deficit.
Team Liquid was another top performer at IEM Katowice, however after being unceremoniously swept by Virtus.pro came into their group looking to prove that their recent success was more than several strung together upsets. This was exactly what TL did as they beat Fnatic 2-0 on their first day. With a shaky start on Overpass, Keith “NAF” Markovic and Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo stabilized the team and found an 8 round winstreak that gave the NA organization a 1-0 start.
Vertigo was a much more convincing victory as TL led on both attacker and defender sides, finishing 16-7. FalleN had one of his best showings since taking on the IGL role in Team Liquid, ending with 45 total kills, 20 of which coming on the AWP.
The final match of the day was a slugfest between Astralis and Evil Geniuses, though ended with EG on top with a 2-1 victory. EG managed to beat Astralis on their map pick of Nuke 12-16, no easy task that can be largely credited to Vincent “Brehze” Cayonte who found 30 kills in just one game and clutched out multiple rounds.
Astralis fired back with a 16-10 win on Vertigo. Unfortunately for EG, their latest pickup, Owen “oBo” Schlatter, had an incredibly slow start in his debut as he bottom fragged in the two opening maps. oBo picked up on the game deciding map, Inferno, where he completely turned around his play by claiming 22 frags in EG’s 16-7 win. Evil Geniuses looked surprisingly strong in their debut, though stand work on team cohesion.
