FaZe Clan Get Eliminated from IEM Rio Major

Every CS:GO is special in its own way. But IEM Rio Major has been completely crazy so far. We never see so many upsets at a single event and so many dark horses. Anyone looking at the rankings table has the impression that it’s been rotated by 180 degrees.

FaZe Clan were the winners of the previous CS:GO Major, PGL Antwerp. They were also the winners of one of the European RMRs for IEM Rio Major. When you look at their 0 W – 3 L elimination in the context of what they’ve done this season, the result is quite shocking.

How FaZe got eliminated

FaZe Clan started the tournament in the Legends Stage because they had the Legend status. But unfortunately for them, Cloud9 nearly got eliminated in the Challengers Stage, which meant that FaZe were going to encounter them as one of the supposed underdogs.

But to everyone’s amazement, Cloud9 started to play for real only after losing the first two matches in the first stage. And in fact, they went from good to amazing in the Legends Stage.

This meant that FaZe Clan had to play their best Counter-Strike to win the game, which they didn’t. At one point during the match, the team led by Finn “karrigan” Andersen had a huge advantage, of seven rounds. But despite this advantage, C9 still managed to beat them with well-chosen tactics.

To some degree, Vladislav “nafany” Gorshkov’s team got carried by the momentum they had gathered after the first several round victories in the second half. But the individual performance of the players was still spectacular. The final score was 14-16.

In game two, FaZe encountered Team Vitality and had zero chances of winning. Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut was in top form and won the match almost on his own. The score was 6-16. His individual rating 2.0 was 1.84, which is phenomenal. He practically did more than Dan “apEX” Madesclaire and Lotan “Spinx” Giladi combined.

FaZe Clan’s third and final match at IEM Rio Major was played against Bad News Eagles. In theory, BNE were much weaker than them. But after suffering two consecutive defeats, FaZe were simply not feeling it.

Their players oscillated between good and terrible rounds, allowing BNE to send two of the maps into overtime, where FaZe lost to stress more than to their opponents. Despite having an enormous amount of LAN experience, the players couldn’t cope with the wild atmosphere generated by the Brazilian fans.

Header: ESL