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IEM Cologne Group A results after day 1

Day 1 one of the group stage of IEM Cologne had six interesting matches that featured some of the... Radu M. | 7. July 2022

Day 1 one of the group stage of IEM Cologne had six interesting matches that featured some of the strongest teams in the world: Natus Vincere, G2 Esports, Ninjas in Pyjamas, and Team Vitality. But not all of these teams were successful.

This has created a situation that will result in the elimination of some of the tournament’s favorites before the main event even begins. Here’s what happened in Group A.

Natus Vincere vs. MOUZ

Na’Vi started this match as the clear favorites. Apart from being ranked second globally, they also had high morale. Prior to encountering MOUZ at IEM Cologne, Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev and his squad defeated Vitality in the Grand Final of BLAST Premier Spring Final and other top competitors along the way: BIG, FaZe Clan, and OG.

Meanwhile, MOUZ had struggled to beat paiN Gaming and had lost against Heroic just a few days before.

The match started well for Na’Vi, who won on MOUZ’ map choice, Nuke, with a score of 16-12 despite being three rounds behind at halftime. The second map was Mirage, where Na’Vi had a success rate of 80%. But, against all odds, MOUZ won 14-16.

At this point, some fans were worried that on the third map, Inferno, Na’Vi were going to lose. Because statistically, it was their weakest map. But, once again, the situation inside the game looked very different and Na’Vi won with ease: 16-6. As usual, s1mple, “Valeriy “b1t” Vakhovskiy, and Denis “electroNic” Sharipov were the main carries.

Heroic vs. Ninjas in Pyjamas

Heroic didn’t play badly against NiP but their weaknesses were exploited to perfection by the Swedish team, who had won the previous two matches against the Danish crew.

So far, it seems that the replacement of Ismail “refrezh” Ali has not had the intended consequences and Heroic will need more time to fully integrate their newly signed 18-year-old, Jakob “Jabbi” Nygaard.

The final score in this match was 0–2 in favor of NiP but both maps were close: 13-16 on Ancient and 13-16 on Inferno.

G2 Esports vs. Movistar Riders

This was by far the most bizarre match of the day. G2 Esports played against a team that’s not even in the top 10 and instead of ending the match with a quick and decisive victory, they lost it quite badly: 12-16 on Vertigo and 9-16 on Inferno.

Once again, Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov had a relatively poor performance and the team’s superstar, Nikola “NiKo” Kovac simply couldn’t do enough to compensate for it. At the same time, Riders’ Alvaro “SunPayus” Garcia had a phenomenal KD score: +21.

Team Vitality vs. ENCE

The influence of the former Astralis members, Emil “Magisk” Reif and Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen is starting to show in Vitality’s results. It’s enough for these players to do a good job and Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut will do the rest.

The French superstar, who won the CS:GO Player of the Year award twice in the last three years had a KD score of +19 in this match and a rating 2.0 of 1.35.

The match needed three maps to conclude, which was expected given ENCE’s recent results and global ranking (third), but in the end, Vitality won.

Header: ESL|Steffie Wunderl