Imperial stun HellRaisers; North win Danish derby at StarSeries

Imperial and North are off to great starts at StarSeries i-League Season 6 after beating HellRaisers and OpTic, respectively.

The third match of the day in Kiev began with a strong start from HellRaisers, who cruised to a 4-0 lead on the Terrorist side. A successful eco by Imperial then triggered a hectic period of play as rounds went back and forth, but HellRaisers regained control of proceedings and increased their lead to 8-2.

Imperial looked to have been pinned up against the ropes, but they kept a strong defence for the remainder of the half to cut the deficit to just three rounds before switching to their favoured offensive side.

Nemanja "⁠nexa⁠" Isaković's side picked up where they had left off and took the pistol round to keep their comeback hopes alive. Vladyslav "⁠bondik⁠" Nechyporchuk went huge in the third round with a Desert Eagle and picked up a triple kill to give HellRaisers their first round of the half, but Imperial refused to take their foot off the gas.

With Özgür "⁠woxic⁠" Eker struggling to find opening duels with the AWP, HellRaisers lost their grip on the game, allowing Imperial to hit match point in the 25th round. HellRaisers then found a lifeline as they finally secured a gun round in the half, only to let a 5v2 go to waste in the next round - the perfect example of the state of disarray Kyrylo "⁠ANGE1⁠" Karasiow's men were in after they had allowed a 4v2 advantage to slip earlier in the half.

Kristian "⁠k0nfig⁠" Wienecke opened up the Danish derby with a trio of kills in the pistol round to give OpTic an early lead in the CT side. Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer's men followed that up by winning both anti-ecos and the first gun round convincingly, but then they were caught off-guard by North's CZ push.

Valdemar "⁠valde⁠" Bjørn Vangså picked up two important entry frags on B in the next round to put North in control of the economy, with the DreamHack Masters Stockholm champions riding that momentum to carve out a 6-4 lead. OpTic still managed to respond, bringing the deficit to 7-8, but North's players were certainly happy with that scoreline as they switched to the CT side.

North added to their lead after taking the pistol round on the back of a quad kill by valde, who shut OpTic down as they pushed B. A third-round buy from OpTic did not pay off, leaving their economy in tatters and putting North further into the lead.

Down 7-12, OpTic came close to getting their first of the half after finding a clear path to the B site, but they shockingly managed to lose the round after letting Nicklas "⁠gade⁠" Gade defuse the bomb through a smoke. That was the only time that the Terrorists managed to break through the North defence as Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller's men were in control for the rest of the half and quickly wrapped things up.