IEM Cologne group stage day 3 results

Day 3 of IEM Cologne’s group stage was quite sad for a lot of CS:GO fans who were hoping to see their world-class teams competing in the playoffs. Several giants fell on this day and were eliminated.

As in the previous days, six matches were played and all of them were fun to watch. But three of them were heartbreaking.

Ninjas in Pyjamas vs. G2 Esports

NiP had played three matches against G2 this year and lost every single time. But that only increased their desire to win at IEM Cologne. The match started poorly for them: 11-16 on Ancient. Their lineup got destroyed by Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov, who finished with a rating 2.0 of 1.50 and a K-D score of +15.

The next two maps looked very different. But not because G2’s lineup played poorly. It was simply because NiP had excellent tactics and managed to outplay their opponents in the key rounds. Both times, the score was a rollercoaster: from 13-2 at halftime to 16-13 at the end on Nuke. And from 10-5 at halftime to 16-12 at the end on Inferno.

Team Vitality vs. MOUZ

After losing to NiP in the upper bracket, MOUZ are now ready for a rematch. And that’s because they eliminated both Heroic and Vitality in their first two lower bracket matches.

Vitality looked very strong ahead of this battle, but Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut, the team’s superstar, did not receive enough help from his teammates. His performance was impeccable: +15 / 1.29. He had 67 kills in total and was the best player on the server. But it wasn’t enough.

Vitality won on Inferno (16-12) but then lost on Overpass (10-16) and Nuke (12-16). The match took place in the lower bracket, so Vitality are out of the race.

Cloud9 vs. Astralis

This match looked balanced on paper, but in reality, Astralis crushed C9 with ease. Once again, the Danish players proved to be much more experienced on LAN than the CIS ones. In particular, Benjamin “blameF” Bremer was exceptionally good: +24 / 1.56. He won the match almost on his own.

The scores were 11-16 on Inferno and 8-16 on Mirage. This was an upper bracket battle, so Cloud9 will get a second chance to qualify for the playoffs.

The other three matches

In the other three matches of the day, FaZe Clan defeated Team Spirit (2-0), FURIA eliminated Outsiders (2-0), and Liquid survived against 00 Nation (2-1).

Header: ESL|Steffie Wunderl