FaZe Clan and Astralis eliminated G2 Esports and Team Liquid from the ECS Season 3 Finals in London, England today. The decider matches determined the teams that made it to the playoffs, and both FaZe and Astralis advanced with 2-1 records.
FaZe Clan
FaZe Clan dominated G2 Esports on Overpass and Cache. Although G2 put up a fight on their Terrorist side in the first half of Overpass, FaZe’s strong Terrorist half made it difficult for G2 to defend their sites. The first map ended with a score of 16-10. Nikola “NiKo” Kovač stood out on Overpass with 28 kills and an average damage per round of 110.5.
FaZe performed even better on Train, especially capitalizing on G2’s mistakes during force-buys. With solid A site executes and strong Counter-Terrorist defenses, FaZe swept G2 2-0 with a 16-11 victory. As a result, FaZe finished second in Group A and secured the third playoff spot at ECS.
Astralis
Astralis completely dominated Team Liquid on Train. The Danish team’s overwhelmingly dominant Terrorist side left Liquid struggling to keep up on one of Astralis’ best maps. Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz had an outstanding performance on Train with a kill-death ratio of 23-8 and an average damage per round of 104.0.
Surprisingly, Liquid put up a strong defense in the first half on Overpass. They performed even better in the second half, forcing a third map decider on Inferno. Liquid caused an upset with a 16-10 victory on Astralis’ primary map pick. Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski stood out with 26 kills and an average damage per round of 108.4.
In the first half of Inferno, the score was close at 8-7 in favor of Astralis. However, after switching sides, Astralis took advantage of Liquid’s weak Counter-Terrorist set-ups and only gave up three rounds in the second half. The series ended with an Astralis victory of 2-1, with a 16-10 win on Inferno over a nervous Liquid.
The semifinals
Astralis will now face SK Gaming in the semifinals, while FaZe Clan will play against North America’s favorite team, Cloud9, on Sunday. The winners of both matches will advance to the grand finals later in the day, competing for the grand prize of $250,000.
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