HellRaisers beat ENCE to reach EPICENTER quarter final

After eliminating ENCE in three maps (16-13 on Overpass, 10-16 on Train and 16-7 on Mirage), HellRaisers find themselves among the final eight teams in Moscow.

The Group A elimination match commenced on HellRaisers' pick, Overpass, where their Finnish adversaries won the first pistol round without conceding a single death. ENCE also won the following anti eco, but Issa "⁠ISSAA⁠" Murad showed the way for his team's first round win with a triple-kill in the third.

The mixture were reset in the following, after which ENCE won another round to put themselves on 5-1. HellRaisers then closed out a close pair of rounds to turn the tables and reset the Finns, and Kyrylo "⁠ANGE1⁠" Karasiow's men eventually tied up the map at 6-6. The two teams traded rounds to end up with a 8-7 lead in the favour of ENCE at the break.

The Finns, now on the offence, would come out on top in the early stages of the second half, as they won the pistol round and quickly started stringing together rounds, ultimately winning four in a row to lead 12-7. HellRaisers tightened up their defences, though, and replicated the Finns' four round streak to reduce the deficit to one.

The next rounds were shared by the two teams in a back-and-forth manner, but HellRaisers would ultimately fight their way back after a slow start to the second half to win Overpass 16-13.

Vladyslav "⁠bondik⁠" Nechyporchuk and co. started out strong on ENCE's pick, Train, as the Ukranian managed a triple to win the first pistol round on the CT side. HellRaisers looked solid on the defence in the following three, but the Finns but themselves on the board in the fifth.

ANGE1's troops put together three more rounds to reach seven, but ENCE fired back with a trio of their own to make it 7-4 in the favour of HellRaisers. The Finns would continue their streak to eventually tie up things and even pull ahead before the break, as Sami "⁠xseveN⁠" Laasanen took down four to bring his team to a 8-7 lead.

HellRaisers won the second pistol after switching to the Terrorists side, Bence "⁠DeadFox⁠" Böröcz even managing a knife kill after a bomb plant to tie up the game. The second half started out as a closely-fought battle as the two sides exchanged rounds, but ENCE would eventually come out on top and pull ahead to reach an 12-9 lead.

HellRaisers won the next round, but Aleksi "⁠allu⁠" Jalli's men wouldn't let go of the map win as they won the rest of the rounds to take Train 16-10 and tie up the series 1-1.

Moving on to the decider, Mirage, bondik once again found himself a triple kill in a pistol round as HellRaisers won the first one on the CT-side as well as the following anti-eco, but ENCE quickly fired back with a pair of their own as soon as they had rifles.

What followed was a period of exchanged rounds until HellRaisers found their footing and pulled ahead, as they kept ENCE to four rounds while managed eleven of their own before the switch.

The second pistol became a nail-biter, as DeadFox won the final 1vs1 duel against allu with only 35 hp between the two before the last shot was fired. HellRaisers quickly reached match point, but ENCE won then next two with xseveN managing the AK ace in the 21st round. The Finns managed one more, but HellRaisers finally closed things out with a B hold to win Mirage 16-7 and the series 2-1.