Astralis and Virtus.pro confirmed their tickets for the playoffs on the second day of IEM Chengdu 2024, and in the big derby, Astralis completely outplayed FaZe and celebrated with a convincing 2-0 score. G2 and Heroic survived the fight for survival and tomorrow will decide the last playoff traveler from Group A.
The well-prepared Astralis showed a great face against the Major champions and the best team in the world according to the HLTV ranking. Led by the legendary Nicolai "virgin" Reedtz who took over the IGL role for Astralis, the success-hungry Danes had an unexpectedly easy exit against an opponent who is probably still recovering from the Major.
The match was even during the first half of the Ancient map, where Astralis took a 5-0 lead, then FaZe managed to catch up and even take the lead, and in the end we entered the second part of the game with a draw. When they switched to the CT side, Astralis went on a 7-1 run to take a 13-7 overall lead.
What was even more surprising was the convincing triumph on Nuke, a map FaZe is known for. Astralis took advantage of the CT side to take a 9-3 lead at halftime, but they continued at the same pace in the rest for a huge 13-4 and a convincing place in the playoffs. They will face Virtus for direct passage to the semi-finals, after Virtus.pro managed to defeat FlyQuest 2-1 in the second semi-final of the winner's bracket.
The first two teams to be eliminated from Group B were Steel Helmet who lost to Nemiga, and Wildcard Gaming who ran into Cloud9. C9 and FaZe will play a match tomorrow, after which one of these two teams will be eliminated from the tournament, and the winner of that match will play for the third slot against the better team from the match FlyQuest - Nemiga.
In group A, we watched two matches today. G2 managed to defeat Lynn Vision 2-0, but the Chinese team put up more than good resistance against the big favorites. First, they tormented G2 at the start of Anubis, where G2 managed to break the opponent's resistance only in the second half with a solid defense and lead 13-8, then at Inferno they had the opportunity to win overtime with the score 11-12, but G2 managed to triumph. in the last round and brought the match to an end in his favor.
In the FURIA - Heroic match, both teams won 13-6 on the opponent's picks, FURIA got Ancient, and Heroic got Nuke, to watch all 24 rounds on Overpass, and Heroic was the one who won 13-11.
G2 and Heroic will play tomorrow from 1:30 p.m. according to the schedule, and the match to advance in Group B should also be played sometime around that time.
The matches for the first place in the groups are on the program from 10:30.
