ENCE And Heroic Make It To Semifinals After Stomping Their Opponents
After a stunning series victory over Cloud9, ENCE advanced to the semifinals of the Gamers8 competition in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In the IEM Cologne Group A upper bracket final, ENCE defeated Heroic by the slimmest of margins, and now Marco “Snappi” Pfeiffer and co. have set up a rematch between the two teams in the semi-finals.
With the additions of Denis “electroNic” Sharipov and Ilya “Perfecto,” their roster has been widely hailed as one of the strongest in recent memory. In the quarterfinals, ENCE easily dispatched Zalutskiy and Cloud9. While ENCE was operating at full capacity, their personnel were nowhere to be found.
Despite making it to the finals, Snappi told James “BanKs” Banks that the team hadn’t been “really hitting our shots” in Cologne. “Today, the most important thing was how well each of my players performed individually,” said the coach.
This was especially true for Guy “NertZ” Iluz, who had previously discussed his struggles with self-confidence after his poor showing at IEM Cologne.
The Israeli finished the quarterfinal series as the best fragger on both maps, with a 44-25 score, 108 ADR, and a 1.50 rating, making him the highest-rated player in the event.
All of his teammates chipped in, as well, with significant plays that pulled Cloud9 completely out of contention for wins on Ancient and Anubis.
By beating GamerLegion 2-1, Heroic secured a spot in Gamers8’s semifinals. After a tense battle, the Danes finished in the top four and will play ENCE for a chance to advance to the finals.
The Danes came out swinging in Game 1 of the series, crushing GamerLegion 16-3 on Inferno, the map of GamerLegion’s choosing. The Danes, led by René “TeSeS” Madsen’s brilliant CT half, went on to win the game without giving up a single round in the offensive half.
After Heroic took a risk with the veto, neaLaN’s men answered with a 16-9 victory on Vertigo. Richard “Xizt” Landström made the decision to play on a map neither team was familiar with and ultimately cost them the game, especially since Sebastian “volt” Maloș exploded in the first half, racking in a rating of 1.99 and an 8-1 record in opening duels.
TeSeS said in the postgame interview, “It was just bad teamplay, we played really bad on Vertigo.” “All the plays you need to do in the middle of the round, we didn’t do, and we didn’t coordinate it that well.”
Despite GamerLegion’s CT side dominance, Heroic regained the upper hand on Overpass swiftly. The Europeans won just one round in the first half, and their 7-16 record is the result of a brief second-half comeback.
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