forZe take down Syman, DreamEaters outclass Spirit in CIS Minor openers

In the opening two matches of the CIS Minor, FORZE grabbed a comfortable 16-9 victory over Syman on Mirage, while DreamEaters caused the first upset of the tournament after outclassing Spirit 16-3 on Overpass.

The opening match of Group A at the CIS Minor in Berlin saw Syman square off against FORZE on Mirage in what turned out to be an uphill battle for the former team from the start.

Andrey "⁠Jerry⁠" Mekhryakov & co. established an early 4-1 lead off a pistol round victory, while Syman responded with two in a row on the back of doubles from Ilya "⁠Perfecto⁠" Zalutskiy and Ramazan "⁠Ramz1kBO$$⁠" Bashizov in a 3v5 situation, but an A execute shifted momentum back in favor of FORZE.

Syman had no say in the rest of the half despite finding themselves in a huge advantage in the 13th round, as Almaz "⁠almazer⁠" Asadullin clutched a near-impossible 1v5 to secure a dominant 12-3 half for his team.

Although Syman made a respectable effort to come back, winning six out of the first seven rounds of the second half, FORZE still managed to close out the match before it got dangerous with three in a row for 16-9.

Over in the match broadcasted on the secondary stream, DreamEaters and Spirit kicked off Group B with an Overpass affair, in which the first upset of the tournament was brewing as Svyatoslav "⁠svyat⁠" Dovbakh's side put together an amazing defense.

Viktor "⁠sdy⁠" Orudzhev's team only won two of the first few gunrounds off key multikills from Dmitry "⁠S0tF1k⁠" Forostyanko and Pavlo "⁠COLDYY1⁠" Veklenko, but they found themselves giving up openings to Anton "⁠speed4k⁠" Titov's AWP from there on, as DreamEaters rallied to a 13-2 halftime scoreline.

When some key utility usage from svyat and Vladislav "⁠Krad⁠" Kravchenko's double gave the underdogs the second pistol round, as well, it was only a matter of time before they sent one of the tournament favorites, Spirit, to the lower bracket with a 16-3 beatdown.