IEM Cologne 2023: GamerLegion and Cloud9 survive another day

After taking down The MongolZ and 9INE in the best-of-three series, GamerLegion and Cloud9 have survived another day at IEM Cologne 202.

After surviving in a close series against 9INE in the lower bracket, Cloud9 maintained their chances of qualifying for the IEM Cologne Playoffs. The Polish team struck first with a commanding performance on their pick Vertigo (16-10) but Cloud9 bounced back with a convincing victory on Ancient (16-4) and narrowly prevailed in overtime on the Anubis decider (19-17).

The Russian rifler Ilya ‘Perfecto’ Zalutskiy stood out as the best performer for C9, racking up 65 kills across the three maps with an HLTV rating of 1.27. Following this victory, Cloud9 extends its time standing in Germany and looks forward to its upcoming matchup with Monte.

Meanwhile, GamerLegion lives to fight another day at IEM Cologne after defeating The MongolZ in a lengthy three-map series to move to the lower-bracket semifinal against Fnatic. The team started out by dropping to the Mongolians (10-16) on their home court of Vertigo before retaliating with a dominant performance on Ancient (16-4) and an overtime victory on Anubis (19-17).

YESSS. After OT in map 3 we advance in Cologne.
GGWP @mongolzcs#GLWIN #IEM pic.twitter.com/atQjBURAnQ

— GamerLegion (@GamerLegion) July 30, 2023

 

Frederik “acoR” Gyldstrand, who was in charge of GamerLegion’s onslaught, put up a staggering 74 kills to help his side overpower the Mongolia squad. Usukhbayar “910” Banzragch put up a valiant fight for The MongolZ, registering 67 kills and a rating of 1.30, but a lackluster overtime performance will send him and his team home from Cologne.

Upcoming matches at IEM Cologne:

There is a raft of elimination games coming up today, the first of which sees Astralis take on Ninjas in Pyjamas. Both teams have experienced heartbreaking defeats in their opening games and will be keen to ensure they do not exit the first Big Event early doors. In the second game, the revamped Natus Vincere will be taking on OG, after both teams were fairly comfortably dispatched in their opening games.

Having beaten Cloud9 and running ENCE reasonably close to defeating, Fnatic is now up against GamerLegion, who will enter the game after eliminating The MongolZ. A cut-throat elimination series between Cloud9 and Monte will cap off the day. After thrashing GamerLegion in the opening round, Monte conceded a devastating 0-2 defeat against Heroic and now desperately needs a victory against the Russian side to keep their hopes alive. Meanwhile, Ilya “⁠Perfecto⁠” Zalutskiy and Denis “⁠electroNic⁠” Sharipov will try to rescue Cloud9 by capitalizing on the momentum generated by the victory over 9INE.

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