FaZe ease past ViCi; Renegades take down MIBR at StarSeries

FaZe overcame ViCi 2-0 (16-10 Dust2, 16-3 Overpass) to secure their second win at the tournament, while Renegades traded maps with MIBR before closing the series out on the decider (16-4 Train, 8-16 Cache, 16-9 Mirage).

ViCi started Dust2 on the right foot, claiming the pistol before ZhiHong "⁠aumaN⁠" Liu stole away the first rifle round with an ace lockdown of A. After being 4-0 down, FaZe broke the streak and pulled it back to 4-3, but failed to equalize the scoreline as Andrew "⁠kaze⁠" Khong sniped down four with a saved AWP on an otherwise eco round.

The Chinese side took a 7-3 lead off the back of that, but then fumbled on an anti-eco, allowing FaZe to walk into B with just pistols, and the European side pounced on that opportunity and followed that round win with some fast mid pushes, eventually finishing the half 8-7 up. Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard's triple on a Short flank on the second half pistol set FaZe up for success as they reached map point without losing a round, 15-7. aumaN and Zhuo "⁠advent⁠" Liang then turned around a 2v4, but they were only delaying the inevitable as FaZe closed out Dust2 16-10.

The first half of Overpass was all about FaZe, who dominated ViCi from the offensive side, winning the majority of the opening duels and comfortably taking over the bombsites. Only WingHei "⁠Freeman⁠" Cheung was putting up some sort of a fight, sitting on 14 kills after 10 rounds, with his closest teammate being on five. ViCi only managed three rounds before the half was brought to an end, with no momentum gained at all (12-3).

After the switch, rain had another great CT pistol, landing four USP-S headshots and advancing FaZe's lead. The Europeans brought out the rifles right away and confidently closed out the game, 16-3, taking the series 2-0.

The Renegades - MIBR kicked-off on Train, with the latter team starting on the T side. After losing the pistol and the following eco, the Brazilians secured four consecutive rounds after some back-and-forth action on bombsites (4-2), but they weren't able to close out an anti-eco which saw Renegades bounce back into the lead.

With their star duo of Joakim "⁠jkaem⁠" Myrbostad and Justin "⁠jks⁠" Savage leading the fragging, Renegades dominated for the rest of the CT half, closing it out flawlessly (11-4), and added onto that with a fast A push in the pistol, that worked out perfectly. At 14-4, Renegades broke into the B site and Jay "⁠Liazz⁠" Tregillgas combined with jkaem to secure the 3v4 afterplant, and then closed out the map by winning another disadvantageous situation, a 3v5, moving onto their map pick with confidence.

MIBR started strong on Cache, though, grabbing a 7-1 lead on the Terrorist side. Aaron "⁠AZR⁠" Ward and jks then combined on the A site defence to add a second to their tally, before jks came up huge with three in round 11 to get Renegades back on track. After setting up his team with crucial gun round kills, jks boosted his stats on an eco round, spraying down all five players on a B site defense (8-5).

After a spurt of tough rounds, MIBR didn't falter, grabbing entries in the following two rounds and capitalizing on their advantage with a slow, crunching playstyle to finish the half 10-5 up. The Brazilians locked down B on the first two rounds of the second half and got on the brink of winning as Fernando "⁠fer⁠" Alvarenga locked down mid in the first rifle round (14-5). After they reached map point, Renegades chained three rounds, but it was too little, too late, as MIBR closed it out with a clean A site hold.

It all came down to Mirage, where Renegades took a 7-3 early lead on the CT side, with jkaem showing up in a much-improved (13K-6D) form after struggling on Cache. MIBR tried to change up the pace with a B rush on a full buy, but were shut down easily by Liazz and AZR. MIBR finally got another round on the board as fer got a hat-trick of frags on the A split.

Finishing the first half with five rounds, MIBR closed the gap further by winning the CT pistol, locking down the A site with ease. As they got just one round away from equalizing at 10-10, Renegades got their first T round off of an execute, with Liazz coming up big in the follow up to help them stabilize (12-9). Then the team captain, AZR, stepped up in afterplants, helping Renegades close out the map shortly, 16-9, to move on to the 2-0 bracket in Shanghai.