Renegades, NRG survive; Gambit, VG.Flash eliminated at 0-3

In the 0-2 pool at StarSeries i-League Season 5, Renegades fended off Gambit 2-1 (Cache 28-25, Overpass 5-16, Mirage 16-14), while NRG eliminated VG.Flash 2-0 (Mirage 16-14, Overpass 16-10).

The first map of the Renegades-Gambit elimination match, Cache, began as a game of CT sides. Despite being on the back foot at the beginning after conceding the pistol round and the first gunround, Dauren "⁠AdreN⁠" Kystaubayev's team strung together 11 rounds, with Rustem "⁠mou⁠" Telepov's AWP ringing true throughout the half.

Renegades responded with a fantastic CT side of their own, as they once again got off to a flying start, that time a 6-0 lead, before adding five more to their tally. They couldn't close it out in regulation, however, as Gambit came back from a 13-15 deficit to force the first map to overtime.

It took four sets to determine the winner. The first two overtimes saw each team grab two rounds on the offense, while in the third, Renegades pulled off the perfect defense only to see their opponents do the same. Noah "⁠Nifty⁠" Francis's team made up for it in the fourth, though, grabbing two rounds on each side to come out victorious from the exhausting opener at 28-25.

Overpass was a much quicker affair, as Gambit were dominant from start to finish. With an early 5-0 lead, they were looking to get a sizable half, which they did thanks to Abay "⁠HObbit⁠" Khassenov's ace in an eco round and Nikolay "⁠mir⁠" Bityukov's 1v2 on the way to a 10-5 scoreline.

Once Mihail "⁠Dosia⁠" Stolyarov clutched a 1v2 in the second pistol round, Renegades had too tall of a task ahead of them and Gambit went on a six-round streak to equalize the series at 16-5.

Gambit picked up where they left off on Mirage, getting off to a 5-2 lead as Terrorists after the first few gunrounds. This time, Renegades didn't let their opponents rack up a big lead, however, winning six out of the remaining eight rounds to switch over to the offense at 8-7 in their favor.

Securing the pistol and the first full buy, Nifty's team rallied to 13-7, but their lead started to dwindle away from them when Gambit got to their double AWP setup. Nonetheless, Renegades found the way to penetrate the defense at 14-14 and locked down the last two rounds to move on to the 1-2 pool.

The other elimination match between VG.Flash and NRG kicked off on Mirage, with the two teams going toe-to-toe from the start, as the score was 4-4 eight rounds in. The Chinese side ended up grabbing the better half on the defense, albeit by just one round, but their lead was quickly gone as Damian "⁠daps⁠" Steele & co. clinched the second pistol round.

With that, they were able to get an 11-8 lead before YuanZhang "⁠Attacker⁠" Sheng stepped up to the plate with several key kills to tilt the scales in his team's favor, but it was all for naught in the end, as NRG came out on top after a nail-biting finish, securing the first map at 16-14.

Overpass saw NRG get off to a dominant start with seven rounds in a row on the offense. YuLun "⁠Summer⁠" Cai's team responded with the next three, but it was all they could do in the half as the North American side switched over to Counter-Terrorists at 12-3, with daps sitting at the top of the scoreboard with 20 kills to his name.

VG.Flash attempted to come back into the match and lowered the deficit to just two rounds after a seven-round streak at the beginning of the second half, but NRG put their foot down with four in a row to eliminate the Chinese team at 16-10, 2-0.