mousesports to ESL One New York grand final over NRG

MOUZ have booked their spot in the ESL One New York 2018 grand final after beating NRG 2-0 (16-12 on Inferno, 16-11 on Nuke).

The first semi-final of the tournament kicked off on NRG's map pick, Inferno, with the North Americans winning their T side pistol to take an early lead. MOUZ's force buy attempt was unsuccessful, but they ended up saving for the next round, when they calmly got their first on the board. Still, Damian "⁠daps⁠" Steele's men remained in the lead with another pair of successful rounds.

Tomáš "⁠oskar⁠" Šťastný responded with a 1v2 clutch, and, after that, NRG simply could not get through MOUZ' defence. The North Americans nearly halted their opponents' momentum in the 11th round, but the Czech AWPer denied them with a great 1v4 clutch. Another key player for MOUZ in the first half was Miikka "⁠suNny⁠" Kemppi, who, with 23 frags, helped his team to switch sides with a 10-5 lead.

With a triple-kill from suNny in a 4v5 post-plant situation, MOUZ won the second pistol, and they followed that up with the anti-ecos and the first gun round to make it 14-5. The European team eventually hit map point, but NRG kept a very tight defence, which finally caved in in the 28th round.

Next up was Nuke, MOUZ' map pick. Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool and co. won their Terrorist pistol and an anti-eco, but hey could not prevail in the next round as Tsvetelin "⁠CeRq⁠" Dimitrov picked up three kills with a Desert Eagle, two of them in a 1v2 situation. That round inspired NRG to take control of the game, with the North Americans cruising to a 6-2 lead.

MOUZ then picked up the pace and prevented NRG from stringing rounds together, cutting the deficit to a solitary round by the end of the half. The North Americans further added to their lead in the second half thanks to Jacob "⁠FugLy⁠" Medina's 1v2 clutch in the pistol round, but MOUZ hit back immediately with a successful force-buy.

After building up their economy, NRG equalized the score thanks to an impressive 1v3 clutch from CeRq with an AWP. Still, unfortunately for the North Americans, MOUZ would not let their foot off the gas, losing only one more round before locking down the map at 16-11.