IEM Rio Major: Fnatic, Vitality and Cloud9 move into Legends Stage

Day 5 at the IEM Rio Major saw Fnatic, Cloud9, and Team Vitality move into the Legends Stage after eliminating 9z, Team GamerLegion, and OG from the competition.

Fnatic defeat 9z

Fnatic return to the Legends Stage for the first time since the 2018 FACEIT Major, following their 2-0 victory over 9z. Previously they managed to beat Cloud9 and OG in their opening Challengers Stage matches while losing to MOUZ and Outsiders in rounds three and four.

meanwhile, 9z exit the Challengers Stage with a 2-3 record. They beat Imperial and Evil Geniuses, but losing to BIG, GamerLegion, and finally to Fnatic, was just too much.

Fnatic started Mirage with a 5-0 lead before 9z hit back. 9z tried to fight back but the score was down 2-9. The pistol round in the second half went to 9z, who caught up a bit, but in the end, Fnatic finished the game 16-11.

On Nuke, Fnatic managed a pistol win, going 3-0 up. The success didn’t last long, however, as 9z quickly equalized to make it 3-3 thanks to Lucas “nqz” Soares. Six more rounds in a row followed, in which 9z built a 9-3 lead. Fnatic were able to reduce the gap to five points at halftime and then worked really hard toward a comeback. Nico “nicoodoz” Tamjidi managed to get two multi-kill rounds with the AWP, which gave Fnatic a match point. They closed the map with a 16-14 score, qualifying for the Legends Stage of the IEM Rio Major.

CLOUD9 win against GamerLegion

The first match between Cloud9 and GamerLegion took on Overpass. GamerLegion initially took complete control and extended the lead to 11-4. Going into the second half with a big deficit, Cloud9 managed to get back in the game on the CT side by winning eight rounds in a row. In the end, the game was extremely close, but Cloud9 prevailed 16-13.

Vitality prevail against OG

The first Vertigo started well for OG as they quickly built a 5-0 lead. Vitality then countered and it was a tie. At the end of the first half, rounds were exchanged and OG went into the second half with a narrow 8-7 lead. At the beginning of the second half, Vitality won six rounds, but OG quickly equalized again to 13-13. Abdul “degster” Gasanov and Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut fought a 1v1 battle in the final round and sent the game into overtime. In overtime, Vitality established dominance and pulled off a 19-17 win.

Inferno opened with a CT Pistol win from Vitality, but OG followed right up and didn’t give up, taking a 7-1 lead. A clutch from ZywOo got his team a few more rounds but couldn’t stop Vitality from going 5-10 at halftime. OG made short work of the second half, allowing Vitality a single T-round as they finished the map 16-6 and sent the series to Dust2.

On Dust2, OG were able to win four rounds of CT before Vitality responded. The French team used a lot of willpower to secure an 8-7 half-time victory. The second half was noticeably wilder, but OG stumbled and Vitality outplayed their opponents in a 16-8 win.

Header: Adela Sznajder / ESL