AVANGAR squeeze past FURIA; Winstrike stun fnatic in Katowice

AVANGAR and Winstrike have moved into the 1-1 pool in the IEM Katowice's New Challengers Stage after beating FURIA and fnatic, respectively.

The match between AVANGAR and FURIA was played on Mirage, where the Brazilians got off to a great start as Counter-Terrorists, constantly shutting down the Kazakh side to go up 5-0.

Despite losing the next round, Kaike "⁠KSCERATO⁠" Cerato and co. strung three together without much effort, making it 8-1. AVANGAR responded well, however, winning every remaining round of the half to reduce the deficit to a narrow 7-8 score.

Just like in the previous half, FURIA were the better side during the early stages, bringing the scoreline to 11-7. Still, AVANGAR picked up the next round with nothing but Deagles, eventually bringing the gap to a sole round once again.

The game then entered a chaotic stage with neither team being able to take control of the map, but AVANGAR would prevail at the final hurdle, sealing the deal at 16-14.

On the secondary stream, Winstrike took control of proceedings as CTs on Train, winning a flawless pistol and the subsequent anti-eco, fnatic responded in their first gun round, but they were immediately reset by their opponents, who went on a dominant run.

In the 11th round, fnatic finally managed to break their opponents' streak, but they could not follow that up as Aurimas "⁠Kvik⁠" Kvakšys and Georgi "⁠WorldEdit⁠" Yaskin clutched a 2v3 post-plant situation. The CIS-based team was far too hot for Richard "⁠Xizt⁠" Landström's men to handle, and went on to take a dominant 13-2 half-time lead.

Now playing on the CT side, fnatic did not throw in the towel and rallied to a 9-13 score. However, a 1v3 clutch by Kirill "⁠Boombl4⁠" Mikhailov, followed by a triple-kill from WorldEdit, put Winstrike on match point, and the Russian side wrapped things up at 16-11 to take their first victory in Katowice, while the Swedes have plunged into despair as they are on the verge of elimination.