FaZe and Spirit justified their roles as favorites in the semi-final matches and easily reached the grand final of the IEM Katowice 2024 CS2 tournament.
FaZe Clan and MOUZ were the first to take the stage, and the hype around the semi-finals quickly died down after the fans quickly realized that MOUZ simply didn't have what it took to stop FaZe right now.
FaZe outscored rivals 13-3 on their peak map Nuke where they took nine rounds on the T side and then played perfect defense down the stretch. FaZe continued at the same pace on Ancient, they were 10-2 at halftime, which means that their total score up to that point in the match was 23-5, which further illustrates how superior the opponent was FaZe Clan.
MOUSE made the match interesting in the rest of the game, they started a big turnaround, which they might have reached if Havard "rain" Nygaard had not made key plays when it was needed most and helped his team to a 13-11 victory.
As a reminder, rain missed his team's title at IEM Katowice 2024 due to covid, so it's no surprise that he's extra motivated for FaZe to regain the title they lost last year.
For that to happen rain will have to play much better today against Danilo "donk" Kryshkovets and prevent Spirit from demolishing FaZe like they did in the group stage finals.
Donk and Spirit continued to terrorize the opposition, and their latest victim was Team Falcons, which they easily defeated in the battle for the finals. Donk finished the match with a 1.64 rating and 94.7 damage per round, and it is already clear that no matter how the final ends, he will be the MVP of the tournament unless a miracle happens.
Team Spirit as a whole continues to function really seamlessly, which is made a lot easier when you have a player who is constantly opening rounds with frags and making it a lot easier for you to execute your plan. Similar to the previous match, the defeated rival managed to match the opponent only in one of the four halves played, and in this case it was the second part of Anubis where the match was opened.
The Spirit quickly jumped out to a big 9-3 lead on the T side of the opponent's pick, before holding on to a 13-8 victory. We only saw one team on the Ancient map and all the Falcons managed to do was pick up three consolation runs in the first half to ease the loss to 3-13.
