gla1ve took ultimate revenge with insane performance against Astralis
The legendary in-game leader brought his A-game as ENCE eliminated Astralis from IEM Katowice.
Astralis, FURIA, Rooster, and BetBoom are out of IEM Katowice after two straight defeats in the Play-in tournament.
For Astralis this comes as a huge blow after the Danes had started 2024 promising. In Katowice however, they lost to both Heroic and ENCE despite being considered favorites in both matches. In the matchup against ENCE, it was naturally the rendezvous with their former in-game leader Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander that stole the headlines. The four-time Major winner faced his old team for the first time since he was kicked from the roster.
On Vertigo ENCE dominated their CT side to swing the map in their favor before heading onto Astralis’ map pick of Ancient. Here things took a dramatic turn as Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander played the perhaps best half of his career completely destroying his old team again and again. The old Astralis captain went 22-4 in K-D against his old team, who could do nothing to prevent the incoming loss. As Paweł "dycha" Dycha stated after the match: “Snappi always wanted us to give 200 % against Danish guys. Right now, we did 400.”
The win for ENCE sets them up with a match against TheMongolz, where the winner will advance to IEM Katowice.
Cloud9 won 2-1 in a heated CIS battle against BetBoom. In a match where the screams and taunts came flying from both sides, it was Kirill "Boombl4" Mikhaylov who made a key difference for his side to stay alive in the tournament. Next up another CIS team awaits in Virtus.pro.
FURIA came short in their battle against Apeks that went to all three maps to be decided. A 13-11 win for Apeks on Ancient settled the matter for Martin "STYKO" Styk and his troops. A good comeback for the European team, who was thrashed 13-0 by Spirit on the very same map earlier in the tournament.
In the last elimination match of Day 2, M80 won a very comfortable victory against the Australians from Rooster.
Eternal Fire, Spirit, GamerLegion, and Heroic are all through to the main tournament, while the last qualifiers will be played out today.
Results of Day 2 of IEM Katowice Play-in:
Apeks – FURIA 2-1
Astralis – ENCE 0-2
BetBoom – Cloud9 1-2
M80 – Rooster 2-0
GamerLegion – Virtus.pro 2-1
Spirit – TheMongolz 2-0
Matches on Day 3 of IEM Katowice Play-in: (CET)
16.30: Virtus.pro – Cloud9
16.30: TheMongolz – ENCE
19.30: BIG – Apeks
19.30: Rebels – M80
