ENCE and MOUZ are in the Grand Final of IEM Dallas

The IEM Dallas 2023 Grand Final will be played later today and the two finalists are not at all the ones we were expecting. Heroic should have played this match against FaZe Clan, but both of them lost in the semifinals.

The two matches that led to this outcome were absolutely insane. Heroic lost the third map against MOUZ 14-16, while FaZe Clan lost the third map against ENCE 28-31. For a lot of spectators and Twitch viewers, the action was too much to handle.

For those who watched these matches without really having a horse in the race, the intensity of every round was a lot of fun to experience. When formidable teams play against underdogs, the match is usually extremely one-sided. But this time was different.

Heroic vs. MOUZ: 2-1

Heroic were caught off-guard by their opponents in this match and lost the first map, Vertigo, without getting to do much. This was MOUZ’s map pick and it’s clear that they meticulously studied Heroic on it. The score was 8-16.

The best player on the server was Christopher “dexter” Nong, who finished with a K-D score of 28-12 and a rating 2.0 of 1.82. He practically carried MOUZ on his own. Without this majestic performance, the score would have been very different.

In a strange turn of events, dexter went on to be the worst player on the server on the second map of the match. His K-D score was 4-21 and his rating 2.0 was 0.38. It’s extremely rare to see a player swing so much from one map to the next. The score on Overpass was 16-9.

The match was decided on Ancient and the two teams were very close to each other at all times. The final score, 14-16, sent MOUZ to the Grand Final.

ENCE vs. FaZe Clan: 2-1

The first two maps of this match were very one-sided. The first one was won by FaZe (8-16) while the second one was won by ENCE (16-6).

The third map was a true marathon and nobody wanted to lose. The two halves were perfectly equal and the teams essentially played another complete map in the overtime rounds. The score for those rounds was 16-13 in favor of ENCE, who finally qualified for the Grand Final of another S-tier CS:GO event.

Their previous Grand Final, which they lost against Cloud9, was played exactly in the same place, at the previous edition of the same tournament: IEM XVII Dallas (2022).

Header: ESL