Cloud9 end FaZe’s Grand Slam hopes at EPL

Cloud9 became the second team to secure a spot in the semi-finals of ESL Pro League Season 16 after defeating FaZe 2-1. Vladislav “⁠nafany⁠” Gorshkov‘s men barely conceded Inferno (13-16) before coming back on Ancient (16-9) and Mirage (16-11) to repeat their victory over the Europeans at IEM Dallas.

The loss means FaZe‘s Intel Grand Slam charge in Malta has come to an end. The European squad advanced from Group B with a 4-1 record and reached the quarter-final after an unconvincing win against Complexity before falling to the Russians.

Cloud9 opened up the series by taking the opening pistol round on Inferno over FaZe to claim an early 4-0 lead. The Russians’ advantage was slowly eroded following three successful holds of the A bombsite which also got the CT economy in shape for the rest of the half. Helvijs “⁠broky⁠” Saukants was a solid performer for the defenders with a 1.59 rating and 100% KAST while helping the Europeans edge the half 8-7 ahead.

The match remained equally as close after switching sides as neither side maintained the lead for long stretches of time. Dmitry “⁠sh1ro⁠” Sokolov came alive on the CT side while Sergey “⁠Ax1Le⁠” Rykhtorov carried his solid performance from the first half, with the duo propelling Cloud9 to a 13-12 advantage. FaZe responded with four consecutive hits on the B site which allowed them to steal the lead and close the map with a 16-13 scoreline.

Cloud9 were fantastic on their pick of Ancient. Despite failing to build on their pistol round victory, the Russian squad exploited FaZe‘s B site defense to claim an eight-round winning streak. broky struggled across the first half, only registering one frag and a 0.46 CT rating as the Europeans salvaged a 6-9 scoreline going into halftime.

FaZe were unable to get themselves back in the game despite taking the second pistol round. Cloud9‘s force buy on the seventeenth round shut down the European offense on the B site, stealing the momentum away from the Ts. The Russian squad only dropped one more round before evening out the series with a 16-9 victory to take their seventh consecutive LAN win on Ancient.

Cloud9 continued to surprise FaZe with a few aggressive rounds on the T side of Mirage. Several hits from the Russian offense on the A bombsite put the karrigan‘s team at a 4-9 disadvantage, but a short resurgence late in the half allowed them to go into the second half only trailing 6-9 behind.

sh1ro came alive after switching to the CT side, but it was Ax1Le to shine the brightest once again. The 20-year-old rifler registered a 1.99 rating on the CT side to power Cloud9 to a 16-11 victory, eliminating FaZe from the event.

Cloud9 secured their spot in the semi-finals where they will look to get revenge against Liquid on Saturday at 14:30 . the North American squad advanced from Group D in third place before knocking out fnatic and MOUZ in the playoffs.