Team Falcons Makes Lower Bracket Run Work At IEM Katowice 2024

A shaky, newly formed roster, Team Falcons, showed struggles in the early stages of IEM Katowice. However, they’ve polished their gameplay in the span of a few days and guaranteed a Top-6 finish.

Early Struggles

The Falcons by no means looked great coming into their first few matches at IEM Katowice. Eternal Fire, a solid team, obliterated the players, but accounting for the rumored “millions of dollars” invested on the Falcon’s roster, this type of defeat should never have happened. 

The Falcons lost 13-9 and 13-6 in a 0-2 defeat against the Turks and were sent down to the Lower Bracket. Though it was early days, most fans had already lost hope in the squad since the competition would only get more demanding from this point onward.

Lower Bracket Run Begins

Things looked a little better for BOROS fans as they played Rebels, the lowest-ranked team in the tournament, in their first match for the Lower Round 1. Though the Falcons got the job done, it was not the comfortable victory it should have been. The Saudi-backed team dropped their map pick of Anubis against an incredibly heavy underdog, which, simply put, is unacceptable.

Still, the Falcons went game-by-game, and next thing you know, they were playing Team Complexity in the Lower Semi-Final. A terrible start to the series happened as Team Falcons dropped their map pick of Ancient. Being 0-1 down in this elimination series, Snappi and the crew were staring at elimination.

After the individuals stepped up their performance, the Falcons could even the series after dominating Complexity’s pick of Overpass. The following map, however, was Anubis, a map where the million-dollar roster lost to the Rebels, ranked 118th in the world. 

Complexity had the game under control with a 10-8 lead on their Terrorist side, and as all updated CS2 fans know, Anubis is a highly T-sided map. However, a low-buy victory for the Falcons spiralled the game out of control, as they could string five rounds in a row to win the series. 

The Final Hurdle

Though most fans had written off the Falcons days ago, the squad was playing against Natus Vincere as the underdog for the final spot at the Spodek Arena. Na’Vi, a top-three team in the world, hasn’t looked too great at Katowice either, so there was real upset potential – and that happened.

Though Na’Vi’s individuals were asleep during the series, credit still has to be given to the Falcons players, especially Álvaro “SunPayus” García and Emil “Magisk” Reif, who both had a lights-out performance throughout the series.

Team Falcons could come back from a 3-9 deficit to a 13-11 victory on their map pick of Ancient, stomp Na’Vi’s choice of Mirage 13-4, ending the series 2-0. 

With this result, the Falcons will play in the Quarter Finals of IEM Katowice, with their opponents being ENCE.

DOUBT US, HATE US, FEAR US!

FALCONS ARE COMING TO SPODEK! 🇵🇱🦅#FalconsAreHere pic.twitter.com/lPuW3FQkCH

— Falcons Esports (@FalconsEsport) February 6, 2024

Despite ENCE’s miracle run so far, Danny “zonic” Sørensen’s squad, on paper, should take this series. If the Falcons were to win against ENCE, they’d have to face Team Spirit in the Semi-Final.