ForZe Edge Past BLINK To Win Gjirafa50 Masters League Season 2 Finals

forZe have claimed victory in Tirana, Albania at the Gjirafa50 Masters League Season 2 Finals, completing a run through the lower bracket of the double-elimination event by scraping past BLINK in the grand final.

The four-team tournament, whose competitors all qualified from the online stage, offered a prize pool of $70,972, with BLINK being the sole home squad in attendance.

Andrey “⁠Jerry⁠” Mekhryakov‘s men kicked the tournament off in poor form, losing their opening match in rather one-sided fashion to AVE, but managed to recover with a win over Trasko before prevailing in a rematch against their fellow Russian squad. BLINK, meanwhile, beat Trasko in their opening match, and fought back from a map deficit against AVE to advance to the grand final.

forZe came out on top in their second LAN appearance of 2021

forZe took an early lead to start the final series, putting up a strong showing on Ancient (16-9) before claiming a closely contested win on Overpass, shutting down a red-hot performance from Rigon “⁠rigoN⁠” Gashi.

Despite the 2-0 lead in the series though, forZe were unable to close things out in swift fashion, and rigoN continued to put up numbers for his side as they battled back to even the series score, winning Inferno (16-9) and rallying back from a 5-13 deficit on Mirage by winning eleven rounds in a row to force a Dust2 decider.

There, rigoN cooled off, but BLINK still made the map a competitive affair despite falling short in the end. Although it was forZe who were in control early on, posting a 9-3 lead, resilience from BLINK saw them fight back in the latter portion of the first half, momentum which they maintained after the side swap to gain the upper hand, 13-11.

However, multi-kill rounds from Evgeny “⁠FL1T⁠” Lebedev helped forZe get back in the running, and they were able to fight back to steal away the map win from the brink of defeat, claiming a series victory.