ENCE Performed Better Than Expected With a Substitute Player
Before the tournament began, ENCE was considered one of the strongest contenders for the title, but the opinion changed for many cs-go betting experts after they learned that Lotan “Spinx” Giladi wouldn’t be able to attend the event. The reason was because of ongoing visa issues, and the biggest problem for ENCE is that Spinx was clearly the best performing team for them in the PGL Major Antwerp 2022, so the expectations dropped heavily after seeing the news. Veteran Janusz “Snax” Pogorzelski is replacing Spinx for the duration of the event, Snax is mostly known for his legendary run with Virtus Pro a few years ago, and he already surprised a lot of us on the opening day.
ENCE faced up against MOUZ in their first match, and against all the cs-go odds, they managed to score a victory. I still think that they didn’t look as strong as they did during their PGL Major Antwerp 2022 run, but they played well enough to outperform a MOUZ that was looking to turn things around as they haven’t been finding success as of recently. Let’s be honest, Snax didn’t put up a great performance only if we compare him to what Spinx is capable of adding to the team, but he brought the necessary tools to take down a team weaker than them, and this win gave them enough confidence for their next match against G2 Esports, one of the favorite teams in the tournament.
G2 Esports wasn’t ready at all for what ENCE had up their sleeves as they couldn’t win a single map against them in a best-of-3 series. Yes, the series was a very close one and it isn’t crazy to think that it could’ve went easily in G2’s way, but ENCE ended up performing better and that secured them the first spot in the playoffs. They still have to play against FaZe Clan in the upper bracket finals, and while ENCE could take down G2, Faze is a whole different beast. It’s going to be hard to not root for ENCE as they are looking to make a miracle run of their own with a substitute player in a very stacked tournament.
FaZe Completely Dominated Vitality
We have to start by saying that many cs-go betting experts are already putting FaZe as the favorite team to win it all, mostly because of how dominant they were in the PGL Major Antwerp 2022. The team captained by Finn “karrigan” Andersen only dropped 1 game in the major playoffs, and it was against Ninjas in Pyjamas, a team that is already struggling in group B. FaZe didn’t struggle at all in their first game of the IEM Dallas 2022, where they had to play against Encore, a team that already got eliminated from the tournament.
Their next victim would be Team Vitality, a team that couldn’t play up to the expectations in the Antwerp major as the failed to qualify for the playoffs after losing their elimination match versus Heroic. While Team Vitality did put up a good fight in the first map of the series, it wasn’t enough to secure the victory and FaZe dismantled them in the second map of the series, which was Nuke. Now Team Vitality will have to fight for their lives against MOUZ, and if they fail to score a victory in their books, they’ll be flying home very soon.
On the other hand, FaZe now has to prepare for their upcoming best-of-3 series against ENCE, a team that has managed to perform way above the expectations as they are currently missing their best player. As I mentioned before, it’s hard to not support ENCE in the upcoming upper bracket finals, but if we are being completely honest, FaZe shouldn’t struggle much against them and get a quick sweep in order to secure a spot in the playoffs semifinals.
