IEM New York NA: With One Day Left, Who Can Make Playoffs?

IEM New York is part of a long chain of online events for the North American region and has updated us on the progress of the teams following the ESL Pro League playoffs. So far, not a lot has changed. The top teams have largely remained the same, only Chaos have improved and got a solid upset victory, which shook up Group B.

GROUP A

FURIA are continuing their victory sweep through NA. The Brazilians have recently won ESL Pro League and are now up 4-0 in the Group Phase of IEM New York. In their last match, they will have to go up versus the New England Whalers, which will likely secure them a fifth victory. Nonetheless, the Whalers are qualified for playoffs already, as they were able to set themselves on top of Rebirth, Triumph, and imPerium. The distance to those teams is already so high that the trio of FURIA, Whalers and EG won’t even need another match win anyways. Against imPerium, Evil Geniuses will probably attain an easy victory as well, which would rank them in second place of the group.

GROUP B

In the other group, the race for playoffs remains open. 100T, Chaos and Liquid have all gotten three wins and one loss so far. In theory, this trio would advance, if it weren’t for Team oNe, who can still mess everything up for Chaos. Should they win in their last match against Chaos, they would contest the second place of Nathan “leaf” Orf and his mates. If 100 Thieves win and Liquid also succeed against RBG, then Chaos and oNe are tied for points. In the head-to-head comparison, the result from this last match would put oNe on top. Even if Liquid were to lose to RBG, Chaos would still be the lowest of the bunch in a triple tie-breaker. So for them, this last match means all or nothing.

WHO CAN SNATCH THE TROPHY?

The Double-Elimination bracket of IEM New York NA gives the teams some sort of protection against sudden upsets. But most of the top teams of the region are present. We know that 100 Thieves and Chaos definitely have the potential to knock out teams like Liquid and EG. Only FURIA remain as an undefeated bastion of American CS:GO. Their performance in EPL was incredible and especially in the playoffs they delivered a clean run to the trophy.

Recently, Liquid and EG have disappointed the fans who had hoped to see either one of the teams rise to the top. Them beating Triumph, Rebirth or Mythic doesn’t mean that they can also take down FURIA. So we should probably expect the Brazilians to run away with yet another trophy. The race for the Grand Finals will be much more interesting. EG and Liquid have lost to 100 Thieves just a few weeks ago. Jake “Stewie2k” Yip and his mates have lost once more to the Australians during this Group Stage. Rumors are indicating that a move by Justin “jks” Savage to Complexity is in the works. But the team is still present in full force. Maybe they’re playing this well because they know that they have nothing to lose and this will probably be their last event together in this constellation.