IEM Dallas 2022 Group A Finals
Although both teams already secured a spot in the IEM Dallas 2022 playoffs, ENCE and FaZe will battle it out in a best-of-3 series to see which team will advance directly to the playoffs semifinals. One of the biggest advantages of having a tournament use this format is that we get to see the stronger teams play best-of-3 series very early on in the event, which is something that all of cs-go betting fans enjoy.
FaZe arrived at Dallas as the strongest CSGO team in the world after taking down NaVi in the PGL Major Antwerp 2022 grand finals. While they were considered strong contenders for the major title, it was hard to predict that FaZe would only drop 1 game in the playoffs and 2-0 the great NaVi in the finals. Their run will definitely go down the history books because they managed to pull off some amazing victories against all the expectations, and they did it many different ways as they didn’t necessarily rely only on firepower or teamwork but rather on a magnificent combination of both.
ENCE will try to take down the tournament favorites after performing over the expectations in both of their matches against MOUZ and G2 Esports. Yeah, it’s crazy to think that ENCE was the underdog in their game against MOUZ, but we have to remember that they are missing Lotan “Spinx” Giladi, who is the best-performing player in their lineup. The legendary Polish player Janusz “Snax” Pogorzelski will replace him for the duration of the event, and if we are being honest, he’s been doing just fine which makes it very exciting to see how they’ll perform against the strongest teams.
FaZe Scored a 2-0 Win Over Team Vitality
Time and time again we’ve seen teams that come off after just winning a big event and proceed to fumble in their next tournament, but this hasn’t been the case for FaZe at all. The team captained by Finn “karrigan” Andersen didn’t break a sweat against the Oceanic team Encore in a game where they only dropped 5 rounds in Nuke after a couple of mistakes. But let’s be fair, that outcome was completely expected as the cs-go odds clearly indicated it. Now Faze would have to face up against Vitality in their first best-of-3 series of the event, which was a matchup that many of us wanted to see in the PGL Major Antwerp but sadly didn’t happen.
The last time we saw these two teams play against each other was back on March, when they faced up in the ESL Pro League
Season 15 and Karrigan’s team ended up taking down Vitality in an extremely dominating manner. But in this tournament, FaZe actually struggled quite a bit on Dust2, the same map where they scored a 16-2 win over Vitality a couple of months ago. Ultimately Faze came out on top as they secured a 2-0 victory over Vitality and secured a spot in the playoffs, but seeing how Vitality played against the major winners, it wouldn’t be crazy to see a rematch later on in the tournament.
ENCE is Surprising Everybody With a Snax
Before the tournament even began, we thought that MOUZ would have an easy time against ENCE, but the complete opposite ended up happening. But let’s face it, it was extremely hard to predict that ENCE would be able to perform like they did just considering that they are missing Spinx, the player that carried a lot of their games in the PGL Major Antwerp 2022. Now let’s give credit where it’s due, Snax did put up a great performance, and although his number might not look great, he seems like a good fit for this ENCE lineup, at least from what we’ve seen so far in the tournament.
Taking down MOUZ wasn’t enough for ENCE, they had to play a best-of-3 series against G2 Esports in order to secure a spot in the playoffs, and against all the cs-go odds, they managed to pull off a 2-0 win. It’s still too early to tell if ENCE will be one of those teams that will have an incredible run even when no one is really expecting much from them, just like Team Spirit did in the last major. But at least we can be sure of one thing, it’s going to be incredibly fun to keep an eye on ENCE as the tournament progresses, and who knows, they might be able to keep pulling off upsets.
FaZe vs ENCE Game Information
- Date: Wednesday, June 1st
- Time: 3:30pm ET
- Live Stream: Twitch.tv
FaZe vs ENCE Predictions
I’ll start by saying that I think that If ENCE is able to keep up a good form throughout the tournament, this might end up being an early semifinals, or maybe even a grand finals matchup. But that’s still too early to say, and the only thing we can be sure of is that FaZe is the clear favorite coming into this match, and the odds heavily favor them.
A lot of us might be rooting for ENCE just because of how awesome it would be for them to score a win against the major winners, but in reality, that scenario seems out of reach for them in reality. FaZe isn’t slacking at all and it’s clear that they come into this event without a single intention of dropping off a game against a team that is using a stand-in player.
FaZe shouldn’t struggle at all against ENCE if they come well-prepared into the match, and I still think that their firepower is just far superior than their opponents’. On paper, this match will end up being way easier for FaZe than their match against Team Vitality, which makes me think that FaZe will have a clean 2-0 against ENCE.
PICK: Map Handicap -1.5 FaZe Clan at +101
