Despite trailing 10-5 on the last map of the match, Ninjas in Pyjamas turned the match around against Cloud9.
It started all wrong for Vladislav “nafany” Gorshkov and his men, who only managed to win nine rounds on their own map pick of Mirage. Hampus ‘hampus’ Poser was the key man for NIP in the defense, while young gun Ludvig “Brollan” Brolin delivered on the T-side.
NIP had picked Inferno as the next battleground. Here Cloud9 chose to start on the T-side, which paid off. An 8-7 lead was converted to a 16-11 map win for Cloud9, who relied on the firepower from Abai “HObbit” Hasenov to take them to the third map.
On Vertigo it was Cloud9 in control, but then NIP started slowly but surely to catch up on Cloud9, and won the match after some close rounds in the end.
With the win, NIP has secured themselves a legend spot at the IEM Rio. Cloud9 can still qualify by winning one of the two remaining matches.
Cloud9 – Ninjas in Pyjamas 1-2 | IEM Road to Rio RMR (Group A)
9-16 (Mirage) | {cflag:SE} hampus – 1.72 Rating / 24–11 K-D / 104.6 ADR
16-11 (Inferno) | {cflag:KZ} HObbit – 1.40 Rating / 24–15 K-D / 84.5 ADR
14-16 (Vertigo) | {cflag:KZ} HObbit – 1.65 Rating / 28–15 K-D / 118.3 ADR
Player of the match: {cflag:SE} Hampus ‘hampus’ Poser – 1.28 Rating / 66–45 K-D / 86.0 ADR
