Virtus, TSM win at PGL finals

Day one of the PGL Season 1 finals, taking place inside the Grand Cinema & More digital cinema complex, in Bucharest, played host to the two semi-finals of the tournament, which features the top three sides from the European division and the North American champions.

The first match of the day pitted Virtus.pro against Team Liquid. The North American giants came into this event brimmering with confidence after securing a spot at the Dreamhack Cluj Major, but they had a reality check against Virtus.pro, who seemed to be in control for most of the series.

Snax put on a show against Liquid 

The action kicked off on de_overpass, where a strong start from Virtus.pro on the CT side saw them close the first half up 10-5. With Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella and Spencer "⁠Hiko⁠" Martin leading the score, Liquid were able to close the gap on their opponents, but in the end Virtus.pro sealed a 16-14 victory thanks to an impressive display by Janusz "⁠Snax⁠" Pogorzelski, who amassed 33 frags.

The map that followed was de_mirage, where Virtus.pro once again came out the brighter, picking up a 9-6 lead at the break. The second half was simply a one-way street as the Polish team dropped just three rounds before sealing a 16-9 success that puts them through to the next stage.

Next up was a clash between two European heavyweights, fnatic and Team SoloMid. The first map of this best-of-three series was de_inferno, where TSM came out with guns blazing, storming to a 6-0 lead. fnatic then finally woke up and started to string rounds together, but still the Danes found themselves up by three rounds at the end of the half.

The second half began with TSM holding on to their lead as they brought the scoreline to 14-10 in their favour. fnatic still picked themselves up and levelled the score at 14-14 but TSM denied them the chance to pull off a comeback and won back-to-back rounds to take the lead in the series.

device was on fire as usual 

The map that followed was de_dust2, where fnatic cruised to an emphatic 9-1 lead on the CT side of the map. Despite the huge deficit, the Danes crawled back into the game and pick up five rounds in a row to give themselves a fighting chance.

A quad kill from Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen in the pistol round as CT then allowed TSM to gain control of proceedings. The former mousesports man was the bottom fragger for his team but he came up huge in the second half, winning a 1vs3 retake in the final round to give TSM the win on a silver platter.