TSM move past Cloud9 to ECS semis

The Group B decider match of the ECS Season 1 finals was something of a North American struggle between the old guard that is Cloud9 and the avant garde that is TSM, with the latter team having been relatively unproven since being picked up by illustrious organisation Team SoloMid (only two offline appearances: the MLG Americas Minor and ELEAGUE Season 1).

Cloud9's map pick of Cache begun the series and it was Kory "⁠SEMPHIS⁠" Friesen's TSM who exploded out on their T-side pistolround and took the round without losing a man. The first gunround saw Tyler "⁠Skadoodle⁠" Latham shut down a late round push with a triple kill with the player's famous AWPing on Cache beginning to factor into the game early on.

Cloud9 equalised the score at 3-3 with TSM then winning the next gun round (with 16-year-old Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken picking up two AK47 kills to close out the round) but the following round saw Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip and Skadoodle grab two kills apiece to reset TSM's economy.

A triple kill from Twistzz on the tenth round put TSM back in the lead in terms of momentum, and forced an eventual pause from Cloud9 and it was Skadoodle who pulled off an AWP quad kill on the thirteenth round to narrow the score. However, the next round saw TSM's Timothy "⁠autimatic⁠" Ta pull off a surprising four kills to single-handedly open up A bombsite and it was TSM who ended up closing the half with a 9-6 lead.

The second half of Cache saw SEMPHIS and Twistzz shut down Cloud9 early on and pull ahead to a 14-6 nearly completely unchallenged (even on the first gunround). Despite Cloud9 managing to secure one round, this half was a story of TSM's complete defensive dominance and they closed out the map 16-7.

The series moved to TSM's map pick of Train and TSM started on the CT-side and obliterated Cloud9 on the first pistolround. With C9 having planted however, a buy on the third round saw a triple kill from Jordan "⁠n0thing⁠" Gilbert go a long ways to helping his team secure a round early on and challenge TSM for first half dominance.

Stewie2K picked up three AK kills on the fifth round to bring down TSM's defenses but the team's economic management allowed them to buy up again and they were thus able to equalise the score at 3-3. With all of TSM playing fairly well, Pujan "⁠FNS⁠" Mehta and his team pulled ahead to a 8-3 lead at this point.

Cloud9 were able to grab a few more T-side rounds before the half closed out but it was a 9-6 TSM lead that rounded out the half. The second pistolround saw a commanding triple kill from Hunter "⁠SicK⁠" Mims put TSM into a 10-6 lead, with both pistolrounds on the map won.

Desperate to shut down TSM and not allow them to pull away, Cloud9 managed to somehow win an eco on the eighteenth round, which saw Mike "⁠shroud⁠" Grzesiek pick up an enemy's AK early on and close out the round with a triple kill. However, TSM bought up and got entries across the map to overwhelm Cloud9 and move up to 12-8.

The next round saw Cloud9 leader Alec "⁠Slemmy⁠" White win a one-versus-three despite only having a P250 on the A site (and he got four kills in the round overall) as the game continued going back and forth. TSM claimed the following round but a force buy in the next round again saw Cloud9 somehow win with Scouts and P250s as the score stood at 13-9.

SEMPHIS winning a cheekily-played one-versus-three on the 28th round brought them to a 14-10 lead and they quickly claimed match point after which Cloud9 called a tactical pause. The tactical pause managed to net Slemmy and his team a round but a pistol buy from TSM saw autimatic pick up two early kills on the A site and SEMPHIS then win a one-versus-two with the Deagle to close out the map 16-11.

ECS Season 1 FinalsBest of 3

TSM

Matchpage

2

0

25th June 2016

Cloud9

16

Cache

7

16

Train

11

TSM	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Hunter 'SicK' MimsSicK	47 - 30	+17	97.3	84.0%	1.55
Timothy 'autimatic' Taautimatic	44 - 27	+17	94.3	78.0%	1.41
Kory 'SEMPHIS' FriesenSEMPHIS	39 - 23	+16	79.0	76.0%	1.36
Russel 'Twistzz' Van DulkenTwistzz	37 - 27	+10	70.8	76.0%	1.18
Pujan 'FNS' MehtaFNS	27 - 34	-7	68.1	72.0%	0.92

Cloud9	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Tyler 'Skadoodle' LathamSkadoodle	36 - 34	+2	76.2	70.0%	1.07
Mike 'shroud' Grzesiekshroud	32 - 37	-5	78.2	62.0%	0.94
Jordan 'n0thing' Gilbertn0thing	28 - 40	-12	58.4	56.0%	0.69
Jake 'Stewie2K' YipStewie2K	23 - 44	-21	61.4	62.0%	0.68
Alec 'Slemmy' WhiteSlemmy	22 - 40	-18	55.8	56.0%	0.67

Tomorrow is the final day of the ECS Season 1 finals in London and will begin with the first semifinal, in which fnatic will take on G2 at 13:00 . The second semifinal will see Luminosity play TSM at 16:30 .

stich writes for HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter