The CS:GO IEM Beijing 2019 tournament kicked off yesterday with 8 teams around the world, most notably the current #1 EG, Astralis, Vitality, 100 Thieves and the red-hot FaZe. The S-tier tournament in China was the first event for Renegades under the new organization 100 Thieves. It couldn’t be a better debut for the Oceanic squad with a 2-0 victory over ENCE, especially when pulling off a massive comeback on Train.
Astralis was back in their vintage form
Astralis kicked off the event with a bang, winning against the home team Vici Gaming pretty handily. Obviously, the #1 seed in the tournament had an easy match against the lowest-ranked team. The Danish powerhouse nailed 2 maps with one-sided scoreline 16-5 on Inferno and 16-4 on Nuke.
After the bad performance in the homeland tournament BLAST Pro Copenhagen, Astralis gained back their confidence and executed pretty flawlessly. Event against the current #9 team in the world – 100 Thieves or ex-Renegades, Astralis broke no sweat, winning both Inferno and Nuke comfortably.
With 2 consecutive victories, Astralis was the first to enter the play-offs through Group A.
eZaF for FaZe Clan
Meanwhile, in Group B, FaZe Clan proved their BLAST Pro Copenhagen victory was not a fluke. They faced against the #1 team in the world at the time – EG in their opening match. Much to everyone’s surprise, FaZe Clan gained their foothold in the event pretty well. FaZe Clan displayed a dominant performance over the overdog EG to win 2-0 on Nuke and Dust2.
The recent MVP of BLAST Pro Copenhagen boasted great numbers on both maps Nuke and Dust 2 to help FaZe Clan stay on track. Interestingly, Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovač started out the first map with a negative score of 0 kill and 6 deaths. However, the Bosnian star would then displayed a great performance to end the first map with 26 frags and 10 deaths and a rating of 1.73. The second map was still a good game for the IGL as he boasted a rating of 1.59, only a bit behind Håvard ‘rain’ Nygaard with a rating of 1.61.
With that, FaZe will be only 1 win away from reaching the playoffs. They will play against Vitality today to determine who will walk on.
Not EZ4ENCE
Teams starting with “E” seemed not to have had a good day. ENCE started the event with a crushing defeat on Inferno against 100 Thieves. They could not win a single round as T-side and accepted defeat 3-16 on the first map.
The next map was a much closer affair. ENCE kicked off their map pick – Train with a great T-side, winning the first half with an overwhelming scoreline of 11-4. However, ENCE reached a dead end when a stellar performance from Jay ‘Liazz’ Tregillgas kept 100 Thieves alive with 12 rounds in a row, defying the initial score gap and bring the scoreline to 14-11 for the Oceanic squad. ENCE reached a dead end and couldn’t catch up with the pace from T-side. ENCE had to accept defeat at 13-16 on Train.
Aleksib was obviously not the problem
In the elimination match against Vici Gaming – a much lower evaluated team, ENCE was the heavy favorite to win. Yet they lost the first map – Inferno – once again. It seems like kicking the former IGL - Aleksi 'Aleksib' Virolainen wasn’t a good idea. Even with more firepower and a wider range of strategies – as the team publicly stated, ENCE couldn’t fix their problem with their demise – Inferno.
Even in their own map pick – Train, ENCE couldn’t display an established and stable performance. Most rounds were won in a clutch fashion by the 17-year-old star Jere ‘sergej’ Salo. Had it not been for his stellar performance, ENCE would have suffered an early exit in the event.
ENCE will once again face 100 Thieves today to determine who will walk on to the play-offs. Will ENCE fix their mistakes just in time or will it be another disappointing defeat for the Finnish powerhouse? The match will begin shortly.
EG with the jetlag and opening match loss
EG barely showed what they are made of in the opening match against FaZe. The story seems to repeat itself as the current #1 team in the world once again lost the first match after one major tournament victory. After the recent victory in the StarSeries i-League Season 8, EG seemed to falter in a tournament far from home.
It seems like the jEtlaG problem got to the team in a match where most members of the North America powerhouse couldn’t show up. Every member of EG ended up with negative scores. They will face Tyloo in the elimination match today. Will the history repeat itself and EG suffer an early exit after one big victory? Or will it be another event exit for the home favorite Tyloo?
SG553 is seriously overpowered
As we have seen the recent CS:GO meta change, AUG declined significantly in popularity after the nerf. After Vitality and Furia introduced the SG553, it quickly became the trend and appeared in almost every match. So many pros have called for a nerf in the overpowered gun, claiming that the CT has no chance fighting back a horde of Terrorist with full investment in SG553. It went to show in the IEM Beijing 2019 that it is indeed the case.
Even in the heavy CT-sided maps like Nuke or Train, Terrorists were actually stronger with their firepower from the SG553. Teams like FaZe or Renegades are riding on the success of the scoped rifle to get a great T-side. After the IEM Beijing 2019, Valve should seriously consider introducing a nerf to the T-side SG553 to balance the game.
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