Cloud9, mouz move on in Cluj

Day two of the Cluj-Napoca major began with the Lower Bracket matches, featuring the losing sides of day one. A defeat here represented an early ticket back home, and the first teams to take the main stage were Cloud9 and Vexed Gaming, on de_cobblestone.

The first half was as open as it gets as round went back and forth and neither side were able to get more than a couple of rounds straight. At the end of the half, Cloud9 enjoyed a narrow 8-7 lead, and the fact that they were about to play on the CT side gave them confidence that a victory was possible.

Cloud9 were the happier of the two sides 

However, Vexed came from the restart looking really scary, winning the pistol round and following it up with two anti-ecos and the first gun round. Cloud9 called timeout to discuss strategy, and it paid off perfectly, with the North American team winning back-to-back rounds thanks to triple kills from shroud and freakazoid before seang@res picked up a quad kill with the P90 to level the score at 12-12.

Cloud9 were now on cruise control and they managed to carry on their momentum, winning four of the next five rounds to move on to the group's decider stage, against the loser of the match between fnatic and Luminosity.

Next up was a clash between mousesports and FlipSid3 Tactics, two teams who had looked way off the pace on day one against2 G2 and TSM, respectively. After Wednesday's defeat, Fatih "⁠gob b⁠" Dayik stated that he believed his team could still go through, and the Germans gave a fantastic response to prove their doubters wrong.

mousesports, who began on the Terrorist side of the map, came out strongly in the match and picked up the pistol round and the following anti-eco rounds with ease. FlipSid3 came close to winning the first gun round as they found themselves in a 4-vs-2 situation, but an incredible clutch by Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač turned the round on its head.

NiKo won several crucial clutch rounds 

The German-team would continue in the driving seat, bringing the scoreline to 8-0 as FlipSid3 looked helpess to stop the massive firepower of their opponents. The Ukrainian team then picked up a couple of rounds, but their winning streak was short-lived as mousesports regained control of the game and closed out the half with a 12-3 lead.

The second half began with FlipSid3 winning the pistol round and the two anti-ecos, but once mousesports bought up the momentum shifted in favor of the Germans, and Chris "⁠chrisJ⁠" de Jong hammered the final nail into the Ukrainians' coffin with a quad kill with the AWP in A.