Today marks the last day of the Legends stage at the FACEIT Major in London. Six teams battled it out in best-of-three matchups to book themselves a spot at the elusive Champions stage.
HellRaisers overcome fnatic after a frantic comeback ensued
The first match of the day, fnatic versus HellRaisers, saw the Swedes mount a comeback on the first map, Mirage. After a chaotic yet dominant half from HellRaisers, fnatic had their backs against the wall when the score was at 11-4 for the CIS team. fnatic won the second pistol round but failed to retain the following three, resulting in a hopeless score of 14-5 for HellRaisers. Somehow, fnatic managed to go all the way back to 14-12 before HellRaisers managed to get one round. Nevertheless, the Swedish team forced overtime after catching up to 15-15. Additionally, Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson and his team somehow found the inner strength to snatch the map altogether after landing a win at 19-17. An amazing comeback that nobody expected in a chaotic matchup.
Map two, Dust 2, was HellRaisers’ pick. This time around, a much more well-rounded half led to a dominance from the CIS squad. After the half, the score was 8-7 in favor of fnatic. Unfortunately for them, HellRaisers found a great pleasure in playing on the ct-side. fnatic only managed to get one round in the half as Issa “ISSAA” Murad was having a great performance, getting an impressive 28-3-14 in the game. The match closed out 16-9 in favor of HellRaisers, forcing map three.
The decider map was Cache and what a surprise it turned out to be. HellRaisers must have transferred over their last map’s flow to this one as they somehow defeated fnatic 16-2 in a clean fashion. Starting out on ct-side, HellRaisers literally made it hell for fnatic to even get bomb plants. Yet again we saw ISSAA take over the map with 25 frags. After a 13-2 half, the terrorist side was just a formality as the CIS squad snatched the last three. HellRaisers go up to the Champions stage while fnatic goes packing.
FaZe defeat G2 in a two-map rollercoaster
The second matchup saw the French formation G2 take on the international squad of FaZe Clan. The first map, picked by FaZe, was Mirage and it was as smooth as it could get. Nikola “NiKo” Kovač and Olof “olofmeister” Kajbjer were gunning from all over the place on t-side Mirage. G2 only managed to retain two rounds from the first half, and interestingly enough, it would be the only two rounds they would get. After half-time FaZe’s defense was enough to grab the remaining three rounds to ensure an easy win of 16-2.
By contrast, map two, Dust 2, was a completely different story. This time we saw the French side get ahead 10-5 at half-time after a strong counter-terrorist side. We finally saw Kenny “kennyS” Schrub perform to the level that we got used to in the past during his Titan days. However, at a 15-7 lead for G2, something magically clicked for FaZe. The international roster went on to fight back the seven rounds to force overtime. If that wasn’t enough the game went on to a triple overtime as neither of the teams was willing to let the other get ahead. Finally, FaZe pulled ahead to win 25-22 after an immense performance from NiKo yet again to secure map two and knock the French out of London. FaZe Clan has really shown immense form in this matchup. A 15-7 comeback and a triple-overtime force just to win the game.
MIBR keep rolling after a three-map battle against NiP
After an absolute rollercoaster of a series against Ninjas in Pyjamas, MIBR managed to defeat NiP and are the last team to qualify to the Champions stage.
The first map of the series, Cache, led to overtime. Despite Christopher “GeT_RiGhT” Alesund’s 33 frags and impressive entry kills, NiP just did not find it in themselves to close out the map. To add to this, the Swedes made an impressive comeback all the way from 15-8, yet that wasn’t quite enough to lock the first map in their favor.
The second map, Mirage, showed a much stronger counter-terrorist side for NiP. At the half, it was an immensely close match, ending at just 8-7 for the Ninjas. Fortunately, NiP expanded upon their lead on ct-side where they were just undefeatable, grabbing the first 3 rounds with the pistol and then winning five more at the very end to guarantee map three at a 16-10 score. Marcelo “coldzera” David was definitely the standout player in the match, that however was overcome by great overall team play from the Swedes.
https://twitter.com/mibr/status/1041423902327619589
The decider map, Train, was hectic at times. NiP kicked things off by winning the first two with the pistol, however, failed to continue their flow of good fortune going into the half as it finished 10-5 in favor of the Brazilian-American mix. At the beginning of the second half, hopes were rekindled for NiP as they strung together five rounds in a row to square things up. However, Janko “YNk” Paunović, brought his team together and refired their spirits. MIBR turned back on to get the necessary six rounds to close out the game, despite close situations on bombsites.
After today’s results, the Legends stage comes to a close. The matchups for the Champions stage with all the qualified teams look as follows:
- compLexity vs MIBR
- BIG vs Natus Vincere
- Astralis vs FaZe
- Team Liquid vs HellRaisers
As always, remember to follow us at Daily Esports for more news on the FACEIT Major.
