ENCE defeat Imperial; to DreamHack Montreal final

ENCE are through to the grand final at DreamHack Open Montreal after beating Imperial 2-1 (2-16 on Mirage, 16-14 on Dust2 and 19-17 on Train).

Starting out as CTs on their map pick, Mirage, Imperial bagged a quick 3-0 lead after winning the first pistol, which saw Eimantas "⁠pounh⁠" Lazickas add a triple-kill to his name. ENCE responded with a single convincing gun round, but Imperial kept controlling the map, constantly stringing rounds together to go up 10-1. Although the Finnish side won the next with nothing but pistols, the European mixture did not give away any more rounds before half-time.

Žygimantas "⁠nukkye⁠" Chmieliauskas opened up the action after the switch with a 1v2 clutch to pick up the second pistol round for his team. From that moment, there was little that ENCE could do to stop Imperial from closing out the map 16-2.

Next up was Dust2, ENCE's map pick. Aleksi "⁠allu⁠" Jalli and co. got off to a great start on the map, losing just the first gun round before securing a dominant 8-1 lead as Terrorists. It was only then that Imperial finally got back on the board on the back of Nemanja "⁠nexa⁠" Isaković's quad-kill, which Rokas "⁠EspiranTo⁠" Milasauskas followed up on with an impressive AWP ace in a 2v5 situation in the next round.

Unfortunately for Imperial, that was all they could get from the first half. Now playing on the CT side, ENCE won their second pistol to increase their lead to 12-4, but then Ali "⁠hAdji⁠" Haïnouss found a lifeline for his team with a huge Scout triple-kill. Imperial kept trying to turn the map around from there, albeit in vain, as the Finns took the series to a third map with a 16-14 victory.

The decider, Train, kicked off just like the previous map, with ENCE going on a great run while conceding just the first gun round in the process, this time reaching a 7-1 lead as CTs. Imperial won four of the next five rounds, but Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen's troops managed to switch sides with a comfortable 10-5 lead.

Imperial came from half-time with all guns blazing and quickly equalized the score after picking up their CT pistol. ENCE responded with their 11th round, but that was not enough to stop their opponents. On a shoddy buy, EspiranTo helped his team to win the next round with two clean scout headshots, and Imperial went on to hit match-point.

Especially with allu stepping up to the plate, however, ENCE were able to take the map to overtime. The 26-year-old continued to play a key role from there on out, inspiring his team to seal the deal at 19-17.