Curse save America's pride, beat n!

The only North American team to record a victory in the opening day of ESEA Season 13 Global Finals were Curse, beating n!faculty 2-0 (16-9 on de_dust_se & 16-13 on de_dust2_se).

Probably the least anticipated clash of the first round saw second seeded NA side Curse take on 3rd seeded Europeans n!faculty. The American squad came off a 7th-8th finish in Copenhagen, while the Germans wanted to improve on their disappointing campaigns both in Denmark and at RaidCall EMS One Finals.

The match started on de_dust_se, Curse's pick, who started on the favored CT side. In spite of that, it was n!faculty taking the early lead thanks to Andre "Kirby" Kempa's three Glock headshots.

Unfortunately for the Germans, Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham made lethal use of his Deagle in the third round and after adding an AK47 kill, he brought Curse a win on a save round.

It seemed that n!faculty will make a perfect reply in their semi-buy, but Stan "stan" Sukachov and Michael "Michael3D" Wilbanks turned around a 2-on-5 situation to tie the score at 2-2.

Curse looked to be settling into their defensive tasks going up 4-2, but the German team executed several tactics that showed they weren't completely unprepared for this map, taking a 5-4 lead after two buy round wins and an anti-eco.

Germans tried to rally their ranks on de_dust_se

That wasn't enough though, as the American team first equalized for the third time in the match and then in round 11 probably broke their opponents with a completely flawless buy round win in which neither off their members even dropped a health point.

They then cruised to a 9-6 lead, dropping the last round of the half in the process, but n!faculty reduced that to 9-8 after the sides changed.

However, Curse's first buy already overwhelmed Christoph "disruptor" Dölger's team, who found themselves picked apart round after round as the deficit grew to 13-8.

n!faculty managed to notch their only buy round in the second half at that point, but it was already too late and we saw Curse take a 16-9 de_dust_se victory.

Skadoodle once again showed his impressive AWP skills

Moving on to their choice, de_dust2_se, n!faculty started strongly thanks to Benjamin "qk-Mantis" Oberlein's 4-kill pistol round, which propelled them to a 5-0 lead.

Latham's AWP turned things around when he started picking off his opponents and the score quickly became 5-4. In a back and forth finish to the first half, n!faculty stayed on top with an average-looking 9-6 lead.

That advantage quickly melted thanks to Curse's successful pistol round, but the Germans wouldn't let go of the lead, taking 3 rounds in a row for 12-9. As it came to the crunch time, the Americans stepped up and started making picks, usually forcing n!faculty to save their weapons instead of going for retakes, and they kept that up for 6 rounds – reaching match point at 15-12.

Oberlein snapped his team out of it with an excellent AWP action while defending the A bombsite, but Curse finished them off in the next round for a 16-13 victory to become the only American team that made it through the first round.

n!faculty	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating1.0
André 'Kirby' KempaKirby	48 - 40	+8	-	-	1.22
Benjamin 'qk-Mantis' Oberleinqk-Mantis	36 - 44	-8	-	-	0.90
Simon 'smn' Becksmn	32 - 37	-5	-	-	0.89
Azmican 'asmo' Berberogluasmo	26 - 40	-14	-	-	0.68
Christoph 'disruptor' Dölgerdisruptor	21 - 42	-21	-	-	0.54

Curse's next task will be to take on NiP in the upper bracket semi-final at 17:00 , while n!faculty will look for redemption against Denial (former FLAMING) at 19:30 .