EPICENTER reaches semi-finals

s1mple
Photo via EPICENTER

Things have finally be wound up in Moscow as 4 teams will fight each other in the semifinals for the Finale showdown which would be held tomorrow here at the Crocus Expo Hall, Moscow, Russia.

Evil Geniuses send Na`Vi packing in Moscow

Photo via EPICENTER

Ranked #5 in the world, the CIS Professionals started with their fixture against Evil geniuses on Mirage with a win on the pistol round leaving the Americans helpless as they marched on with an unassailable lead of 5-0. With match point in the pocket already, EG did grab their map pick with Ethan holding behind the smoke on A-ramp and his shots successfully land on the Boombl4 and Guardian through the smoke. Ranked #5 in the world, the CIS Professionals started with their fixture against Evil geniuses on Mirage with a win on the pistol round leaving the Americans helpless as they marched on with an unassailable lead of 5-0. But the duo of Ethan ‘Ethan’ Arnold and Vincent ‘Brehze’ Cayonte did halt the marching CIS Giants with a quick 2k each and hence getting the plant. Later in the battle joined the Trojan horse Electronic who did hold the site hiding in the firebox position who did topple every Terrorist inc the C4 carrier who entered the site. Tarik ‘Tarik’ Celik who on paper had a low score but he did serve a great purpose with some brilliant Info which he did collect while he was lurking. Natus Vincere did end with a scoreline of 8-7 before switching to the T side. But very soon enough the Americans did concede only 2 rounds in the Ct side with Flamie showing some hope whose 1v3 clutch got denied hence giving EG an upper hand to march onto getting the match point.

Photo via EPICENTER

With this ultimate showdown going onto Dust2 (Natus Vincere’s pick), We saw EG start Strong with Brehze getting a 3k on the pistol round. Winning 3-0 on the scoreline, Na’Vi did jump back on the ship with the likes of Boombl4, Electronic, Flamie gunning down the T side with some crisp shots and hence defusing the C4. Boombl4 did come out to be a spearhead for Na’Vi with a 3k lagging by a score of 1-6. But the CIS giants didn’t really give up with the S1mple and Guardian scoping down the Terrorists on a double AWP setup with a 2k each in the 9th round which did help them to get back in the driver’s seat hence switching sides with a Scoreline of 7 for 8. After the first half, the match did really get close with the 5 EG men rushing mid in the lone strange pistol round on their CT side only to lose the round and hence giving Na’Vi the upper hand on the buy economy and squaring out the score. But the Americans were way too adamant to go for a pistol-armour buy which saw them winning against a fully equipped Na’Vi. With the game being so close EG really did climb up onto the score of 14-10 before Electronic and Boombl4 pulled off some scary encounters which did keep Na’Vi floating. But Stanislaw’s men did show some resistance with turning the tables by winning the match 16-14 with Peter himself doing the honours by taking a 3k with his UMP to deny the plant.

With this win, Evil Genuises march to the semifinals and set themselves a clash with Mousesports.

Also Earlier today we saw Heroic going head to head against Team forZe In the quarterfinal.

Heroic see off forZe in Moscow, set up semi clash with Vitality.

With a 65% win rate from 20 maps, forZe started off its quarterfinal series against Heroic GG.Bet on Mirage only to regret their map pick with losing both of the pistol rounds followed by some rough buy rounds which were completely dominated by Patrick “es3tag” Hansen, Martin “stavn” Lund and Johannes “b0RUP” Borup. The 4th and 6th rounds seemed to be perfectly owned where e3stag and Cadian did earn themselves a 3k each with an AK and the AWP respectively. Although we did see Almazer and face crack putting up on some wild entries and some trades, but yet they were denied by the Danes who were unassailable.  With a scoreline of 1-12 on the server, forZe did open up the A site for some business as they did plant the bomb but were reduced to a 2on2 Situation and were shut down by the duo of stavn and b0RUP. On switching the sides, yet another top-notch performance from es3tag and b0RUP navigated the Danes to a swift 16-6 Victory with the likes of Cadian and Snappi too pitchin’ in this sweet victory.

Coming on to Nuke which was Heroic’s pick, having won both the pistol rounds, the Danes did continue to dominate over the CIS Giants in the Arena with some round wins in quick successions on the T side. Being helpless in the first half forZe did end up 3-12 before stumbling again in the pistol round on the T side of theirs, we did see Jenya ‘FL1T’ Lebedev, Dmitriy ‘Facecrack’ Alekseyev, Bogdan ‘xsepower Chernikov building up some resistance against the Danes to figure out a comeback. In the 21st round with FL1T lurking all the way from the outer area towards the heaven, he successfully managed to pull off a 2k to bring back forZe in the driver’s seat before Heroic did manage to sneak the win with Cadian doing the honours by getting a crisp 3k with his AWP while guarding the A site and hence winning 16-12.

This result does eliminate forZe from the EPICENTER gig with Team Heroic advancing onto their Semi-final clash with the Frenchmen, Team Vitality.

With more to be followed, do not forget to tune in tomorrow for the Semi-finals which are scheduled to start at 14:30 IST (10:00 Am CET).

The schedule is as follows :

Semifinal #1: Vitality Vs Heroic at 14:30 IST (10:00 AM CET)

Semifinal #2: Mousesports Vs Evil Geniuses 17:30 IST (1:00 PM CET)