NAVI out of IEM Rio!
FURIA and 18.000 Brazilians at Jeunesse Arena knocked out the tournament favorites.
It was a Friday night in Rio filled with tension and excitement before one of the most anticipated matches of the year took place. In Jeunesse Arena the crowd had found their way to the brawl between FURIA and NAVI.
On paper NAVI were the clear favorites, but what would 18.000 screaming fans do to the equation?
We quickly got the answer. On Nuke, NAVI’s map pick, the match was much closer than expected. FURIA kept up, and even had a golden chance to steal the map away in the end, but lost to an eco buy from NAVI to effectively hand NAVI the map.
FURIA did not take the flat ending to the first map with them to Ancient. On their own map pick they dominated the T-side leading 10-5 at the half. The Brazilians won the map 16-11 to put the Arena into ecstasy!
But it was not the noise level or the fantastic atmosphere that stood out the most. It was s1mple! The Ukrainian mastermind was lowest on the scoreboard after the two first maps! A 0.84 rating told the story of a superstar that had missed a couple of sitters. Was the crowd getting to him?
Mirage was the third and final map of the game. Normally a good map for both teams. It was FURIA who took an 8-7 lead to the second half. In a nailbiter of a second half the two teams fought each other in the inferno of Jeunesse Arena.
At 10-10 the match took a turn. For the first time on the map, FURIA created a gap. Everything went in the way of FURIA! The Arena erupted while all the kills went in the way of FURIA. FURIA won 16-10 and is ready for the Semi-Finals, while NAVI and s1mple are out of the tournament after a lackluster performance.
FURIA will now go up against Heroic tomorrow.
FURIA - NAVI 2-1 | IEM Rio Major Champions Stage
14-16 (Nuke) | sdy – 1.23 Rating / 21-16 K-D / 76.6 ADR
16-14 (Ancient) | KSCERATO – 1.68 Rating / 24-15 K-D / 107.4 ADR
16-10 (Mirage) | drop – 1.65 Rating / 29-14 K-D / 102.7 ADR
MVP: Kaike “kscerato” Cerato - 1.37 rating
Lowest rated: Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev 0.87 rating