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Day two of the Legends stage of the FACEIT Major was as exciting as the first. Plenty of great match-ups, clutches, upsets, and victories. As we get closer to the Champions Stage step by step, the ante for many of the teams is getting higher and higher. Some feel pressure while others relief. Below are summaries of today’s Counter-Strike matches.

BIG eases past TYLOO

Fantastic performances from Owen “smooya” Butterfield and Johannes “nex” Maget were pivotal in BIG’s success on Train. The German side was impressive on their ct-side, mounting up 13 rounds before the half was over. Despite TYLOO planting the bomb seven times on their t-side, only twice did they succeed in defending the counter-terrorists from defusing. BIG retook sites professionally which led to a smooth half for the Germans. A glimpse of hope came TYLOO’s way when the Asian formation managed to pick up the initial five rounds after side-switch. Unfortunately for them, it was a short-lived dream as BIG retaliated to pick up the following three rounds, closing out the match 16-7.

fnatic bounces back against Winstrike

After yesterday’s disappointing performance against compLexity, fnatic stood its ground against Winstrike. A generally balanced performance from the fnatic side with Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson opened the scoreboard, helping secure a decent ct-side before going on an all-out rage on the t-side. The half ended 7:8 in favor of fnatic. There were no apparent signs of Gregory “balblna” Oleinick and his teammates to let up this match so easily.

JW’s fnatic push on

Everything changed on fnatic’s t-side, where the match turned real ugly. From the very start, the Swedes looked confident, getting the necessary kills to win rounds. Winstrike was left confused and unable to read fnatic’s plays, leading to a bloodbath. fnatic secured the next eight rounds after the half in which only once did they plant the bomb to win the round. fnatic’s t-side showed their true aggressive form, with the likes of Jesper “JW” Wecksell pushing through smokes to deny bomb plants. Let’s hope we will see more of the same from this experienced Swedish formation.

Astralis shows its class against Vega Squadron

Astralis, this year’s most feared and successful team, dismantled the ambitious Vega Squadron on Inferno. Despite the Ukrainian-Russian mix being able to pick up the first three rounds after winning the pistol, that was as much as they were going to get out of the match. After Astralis got their rifles on their starting counter-terrorist side, the Danes formed an impenetrable wall. Vega managed to only secure one more round in the half. The half ended 11-4 in favor of Astralis and it did not get any prettier on Vega’s ct-side. Nicolai “device” Reedtz and his team went on to decimate the helpless counter-terrorists to secure the last five rounds. The match finished 16-4 for the Danes.

Vega Squadron surprises time and time again. But not against Astralis.

Overtime goes in favor of HellRaisers over Cloud9

The match-up between Cloud9 and HellRaisers went into overtime where HellRaisers emerged victoriously. Both teams felt comfortable on t-side of Overpass. HellRaisers snatched 10 rounds of the first half where Cloud9 found it too difficult to contain the Eastern squad. The team from the US finally caught a stride after half-time where they grabbed the subsequent six rounds, finding no trouble to enter bombsites. HellRaisers then finally recomposed themselves to grab the next three and a back-and-forth game followed. Özgür “woxic” Eker and co. nearly closed out the game at the 15-14 mark but C9 stayed focused to eliminate the counter-terrorists to bring it to overtime.

The new in-game leader, golden, is not enough for Cloud9 to make that breakthrough.

Despite Cloud9’s comeback to take it to overtime, Martin “STYKO” Styk’s 32 kills, and Timothy “autimatic” Ta’s impressive overall performance, C9 was not able to win the overtime. HellRaisers showed no sign of giving up close rounds and managed to outgun their opponents to secure a 19-16 win.

compLexity surprise yet again versus G2

The underdogs, compLexity, surprise the audience yet again with an impressive win against G2. This time we saw a match-up on Cache. Unfortunately for the French team, nothing went their way on their initial ct-side. compLexity managed to pick up an astounding 13 rounds on t-side. A lackluster performance from Kévin “Ex6TenZ” Droolans and Kenny “kennyS” Schrub getting out AWP-ed were just some of the problems that G2 faced. Meanwhile, Shahzeb “ShahZaM” Khan and co. were having a ball on t-side, finding opening kills and taking the a-site on the regular.

shox’s tremendous effort is not enough for G2 to overcome the underdogs

Fortunately, G2 didn’t back down easily. After half-time, Richard “shox” Papillon turned on, winning a 1v4 clutch to deny a bomb defuse and started firing on all cylinders throughout the half. Even though G2 were successful on nine occasions on t-side, they fell short to make a full comeback as compLexity managed to secure the last three to close out the match 16-11 in their favor.

Liquid gets to 2-0 over NiP

The next match brought us to Mirage. An impressive start by Liquid led to a closer half than they expected. It took five rounds for NiP to figure out how to counter the onslaught of terrorists. From that point on the Swedes successfully snatched eight rounds before the half finished, leading to an 8-7 score for NiP. After half-time, we saw a one-sided show comprised mainly of Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken, Jonathan “EliGe” Jablonowski, and Keith “NAF” Markovic. Liquid’s defense was simply too much to handle for NiP. The Ninjas were only able to get two rounds in the half whereas Liquid attained nine in order to leave with a victory 16-10.

An interesting observation from the match was the AWP kill stat. Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg attained the most, which was only four. Therefore, the whole game was a total rifles showdown where Liquid succeeded.

Na’Vi takes the win against FaZe in a clash of the giants

Perhaps the most exciting game of the day resulted in a tight match with plenty of clutch moments that kept viewers on the edge of their seats. One would be left doubtful after hearing that Na’Vi lost both pistol rounds and was coming from a 10-5 deficit. However, Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev and his team managed to bring it back. An amazing performance from Na’Vi kept the talented FaZe team at bay, denying bomb plants, managing to win 1v1 defuse situations, and making life a living hell on their t-side.

Karrigan must be disappointed with the result as the in-game leader

Despite a respectable performance from Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovács, FaZe lacked the flare to get more than two rounds as terrorists and plainly ran out of ideas going forward. Na’Vi won the match 16-12, leaving FaZe with a very underwhelming score of 0-2. An unexpected outcome for most.

MIBR denies mousesports on Dust 2

The American-Brazilian mix showed mousesports how to play out Dust 2 in a one-sided game. mousesports kicking off things with three rounds on ct-side after grabbing the pistol was a delusional beginning to the game. An explosive trio of Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo, Tarik “tarik” Celik, and Marcelo “coldzera” David dominated the game from that moment on. mousesports went on to only pick up two more rounds in the half, resulting in a 10-5 score in favor of MIBR. After half-time, the match ended before anyone could have expected. MIBR picked up the pistol but lost the following round only to snatch the next five. A frustrating t-side from mousesports resulted in an easy win for MIBR 16-6. Fans have come to expect more out of mousesports, especially taking into account that they are currently #4 on hltv’s global ranking.

After today’s results, the teams end up with the following records:

  • BIG 2-0
  • Team Liquid 2-0
  • Astralis 2-0
  • compLexity 2-0
  • Vega Squadron 1-1
  • Natus Vincere 1-1
  • HellRaisers 1-1
  • Ninjas in Pyjamas 1-1
  • fnatic 1-1
  • G2 1-1
  • TYLOO 1-1
  • MIBR 1-1
  • FaZe 0-2
  • Winstrike 0-2
  • Cloud9 0-2
  • mousesports 0-2

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