It was a fight for a Grand-Final spot when Outsiders and Rare Atom took the stage in Valencia. Rare Atom put up a great fight, but in the end, the experienced Outsiders squad perseviered.
The semi-final kicked off on Rare Atom’s pick of Inferno, and the 21-year-old ‘Mercury’ seemed very satisfied with that pick. The Chinese rifler was leading the map in most statistics and with his AWPer ‘Kaze’ in tow, he managed to make a real game of it. The favorites of the Outsiders were a step ahead as a team though and took away their opponents’ map pick semi-comfortably at 16-12.
What a series! @rare_atom JUST fall short in the end.
Outsiders are the first to reach the Grand Finals of #ESLChallenger
Valencia ?16-12 | Inferno
16-14 | Vertigo pic.twitter.com/r435JoFUr8— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) July 3, 2022
‘Mercury’ continued his domination on the second map of Vertigo where he found 14 kills before going down. He was winning basically every fight he took, and when he faltered ‘Kaze’ was there to pick up the slack. This amazing performance fueled Rare Atom to an 11-4 CT-side half where the Outsiders were almost only finding rounds if ‘FL1T‘ was popping off.
After the impressive first half, Rare Atom got battered and bruised in the second. Outsiders both individually and as a team were far stronger than their opponents and were able to make the massive comeback happen.
Highlight of the Bo3-series:
The first ACE of the Playoffs!@kaze_cs mows down Outsiders ?#ESLChallenger pic.twitter.com/MYkUJ0qlx3
— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) July 3, 2022
Outsiders – Rare Atom 2-0 | ESL Challenger Valencia 2022
16-12 (Inferno) | {cflag:CN} Mercury – 1.46 Rating / 28-18 K-D / 94.7 ADR
16-14 (Vertigo) | {cflag:RU} FL1T – 1.59 Rating / 31-16 K-D / 98.6 ADR
MVP: {cflag:CN} Jingxiang ‘Mercury’ Wang – 1.39 Rating / 56-41 K-D / 99.7 ADR
