Vitality and OG went on a speedrun in their IEM Fall Group C opening matches with incredibly one-sided first halves to set up their best-of-one victories, while ENCE and Dignitas brawled on the main stream.
OG’s match was particularly important as Casper “ruggah” Due’s men sit 50 points behind Sprout, the team they beat, with both currently holding the two Contender slots in the European Regional Major Ranking.
ENCE, who have shown gleams of potential since returning from the player break and now sit at No.17 in the world ranking, struggled to keep Dignitas at bay on Overpass, although they were able to turn things around late in the map thanks to a crucial clutch by Joonas “doto” Forss in the 25th round.
valde ended OG’s 23-round map with 28 kills
ENCE won the first round on Overpass with a ninja defuse, after which they gained a 3-0 lead before Dignitas tallied their first. The international team didn’t let up, however, retaliating immediately, but so did the Swedes in the following round in what ended up being a close 8-7 half going the way of Marco “Snappi” Pfeiffer’s men.
The brawl continued in the second half with Dignitas trying to run away, 13-11, but a 1vs2 clutch by doto in a pistol buy turned the tides late in the map. Down 13-15 Dignitas won a forcebuy of their own to try and hit overtime, but ENCE didn’t let up in the final round to secure their first points in the tournament.
OG and Sprout, playing on the B stream, got things off on Dust2 with the Germans taking the first pistol round on the attack before going down to a forcebuy from the international squad. Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen’s men then closed ranks and tightened their defenses in a dominating CT display that ended 14-1.
Sprout won the second pistol round to stay in the game and even padded the results with six rounds won on the CT side, but OG kept the map in check and secured their first victory 16-7.
Vitality and MAD Lions traded rounds to open up Inferno, but it was the Frenchmen on the attack that stabilized first, going on to control the dawn of the match as MAD Lions couldn’t find footing on any of their buys and struggled to build up a bank and make impactful plays.
The French team, who’d dominated on the attack with a 13-2 half, were swift in the second half, taking the pistol round and closing the map out commandingly, 16-2, with Jayson “Kyojin” Nguyen Van and Kévin “misutaaa” Rabier spearheading the effort at the top of the board.
The Group C standings so far are:
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