Thunderpick World Championship group stage results

The group stage of Thunderpick World Championship is over and three of the four groups had slightly unexpected results.

The winners and losers

In group A, Cloud9 did not succumb to their lack of cohesion caused by the recent roster change, and ended up winning two consecutive matches. Virtus.pro placed 2^nd after beating Ninjas in Pyjamas and Fnatic. Both of these teams were eliminated. It seems that neither NiP nor Fnatic have had enough time to rebuild a cohesive strategy for their new rosters.

In group B, FaZe Clan continued to prove that their return to form, which they demonstrated at the recent IEM Sydney, is rock solid. They won against SAW and Monte. The first of these teams is not in the top 30, so FaZe Clan’s victory is not exactly relevant. But the second team finished 3^rd – 4^th at ESL Pro League S18 and 7^th – 8^th at IEM Sydney.

Beating an opponent that’s ranked 8^th in the world is no easy task. It remains to be seen what FaZe Clan can do against MOUZ in the quarterfinals, but so far they’ve had a very impressive performance.

Cleaned our mousepads and ready to play Counter-Strike 👍 pic.twitter.com/3uwbuyjNT5

— FaZe Clan (@FaZeClan) October 27, 2023

In group C, Complexity lost against Team Spirit and then had to defeat both M80 and MOUZ to qualify for the playoffs. Unfortunately for them, they only managed to win the first match. What’s bizarre, however, is that Spirit defeated both Complexity and MOUZ, the two big favorites in this group.

In group D, Heroic were supposed to have a rough time after several players got benched. But thanks to their perseverance, they surprised everyone and won the group. First they defeated Nouns and then BIG.

Beating the first of these two teams was not major news, but the second victory was. BIG went on to qualify for the playoffs after eliminating FURIA Esports in the decider match.

General impressions

It seems that strong leadership will compensate for a lot of deficiencies in CS2, at least for now. We saw how Cloud9, by simply bringing in Boombl4 for this tournament, managed to go from mediocre to very powerful almost immediately. The same strength could be felt in the case of FaZe Clan, whose IGL is one of the best in the history of Counter-Strike.

Heroic, because of what dupreeh is able to do, obtained great victories against really tough opponents. And they are playing with numerous stand-ins. Normally, a performance like this should be impossible.

Header: GAM3RS_X, GRID