ViCi have come out on top in the IEM Katowice 2020 Asia Closed Qualifier after defeating their nemesis, TYLOO, in a best-of-five grand finale in CSGO. This has guaranteed the Chinese team a spot at the IEM Katowice main event in late February.
ViCi defeat their rival in the finale
Thanks to ViCi coming into the final from the upper bracket, the team had an automatic one-map advantage. They only needed to secure two more maps to land a spot in Poland. They looked fantastic going into the two first maps, Mirage and Overpass.
Mirage, pick of TYLOO, didn’t go according to plan for the favorites of the qualifier. Their opponent Yi “JamYoung” Yang was unstoppable, attaining an HLTV rating 2.0 of 1.55 and 30 frags by the end of the map. With help from Andrew “Kaze” Khong and others, ViCi toppled TYLOO 16-12. At this point, TYLOO was in real trouble as they had to secure three map wins in a row to win the event, while their rivals only needed one.
Overpass felt like home for ViCi. Once again we saw a phenomenal performance by JamYoung in an effort to take his side to Katowice. At the half, TYLOO would put up a fight on their initial counter-terrorist side to bring an 8-7 scoreline for ViCi. However, TYLOO trembled on their terrorist side as ViCi dominated the retakes and denied the terrorists a single round. This led to ViCi bagging the map, ending the best-of-five derby 3-0 for ViCi.
TYLOO came into the qualifier as favorites but were bested by their rival ViCi in extremely swift fashion. Now the question stands. How will ViCi perform on the grand stage in Poland in February? If both Kaze and JamYoung can come up big just like today, they could become a real menace in Katowice.
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