IEM Dallas day 1 results

Despite having a prize pool of just $250.000, IEM Dallas is an S-tier tournament and its winner will receive a direct invitation to IEM Cologne 2023. Because of this, the battle is quite fierce and on day 1 we saw that the top favorites are well-prepared.

The competitive format is the usual one: two groups of eight followed by playoffs. Only three teams from each group advance to the playoffs, and the opening matches are best-of-ones.

Day 1 results

On day 1, we saw a very determined Heroic beating 9z Team (16-9) and then MOUZ (2-0). In both matches, Heroic looked much stronger than their opponents. Even players like Casper “cadiaN” Moller, who are supposed to have modest scores because of their tactical responsibilities, finished with great stats.

Another team that did well in group A was G2 Esports. Their matches were a complete joke: 16-5 against Nouns Esports and 2-0 against OG. In the second match, the map scores were 16-2 (Mirage) and 16-9 (Inferno). Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov finished with a K-D score of 45-24, easily the best on the server.

In the lower bracket, 9z Team eliminated Fnatic while FURIA Esports eliminated Nouns Esports.

In group B, FaZe Clan barely won their opening match against Evil Geniuses. It seems that some of EG’s veterans are strong enough at the moment to cause serious problems for some of the world’s best competitors.

The score was 19-17 and FaZe only won thanks to a masterful performance by Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken, who finished the map with a rating 2.0 of 1.55. The next-best on the server was 1.11.

ENCE demonstrated their strength against Complexity: 16-7 on Nuke. Alvaro “SunPayus” Garcia had a great day and his 1.80 rating helped his team a lot.

In the third opening match of the group, Astralis managed to defeat Team Liquid in overtime: 19-17. For Liquid, the strongest player was Mareks “YEKINDAR” Galinskis, which was expected. But nobody expected to see Alexander “Altekz” Givskov carrying Astralis. His overall performance was even better than that of his famous teammates.

The final opening match of group B was a one-sided affair. Cloud9 obliterated Grayhound on Ancient: 16-2. All the players on C9 looked hungry for a title win but they will need to prove themselves against Astralis and then, most likely, FaZe Clan. Both matches will be hard to win.

Header: ESL