100 Thieves knock out FaZe

100 Thieves have knocked FaZe out of ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals with a 2-1 victory in Group A's lower bracket semi-final (Inferno 16-11, Dust2 12-16, Mirage 16-7).

Aaron "⁠AZR⁠" Ward & co. have now moved on to Group A's lower bracket final, where they will take on the winner of MIBR and fnatic on Thursday for a spot in the playoffs, leaving Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač's team eliminated in 9th-12th place.

100 Thieves picked Inferno for the first map of the series and got off to a good start before the two sides started trading blows with Marcelo "⁠coldzera⁠" David and Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard putting up individual plays for FaZe, while AZR and Jay "⁠Liazz⁠" Tregillgas stood out on the other side with crucial multikills.

Consecutive triples from the latter helped close the first half with a dominant 11-4 scoreline and coupled with a second-round forcebuy triumph at the beginning of the other, courtesy of AZR denying a bomb plant in the last seconds, 100 Thieves were within two rounds of victory. FaZe tried to come back, but a 5-14 deficit was too much to handle and they conceded the opening map 11-16.

Dust2 was a lot more back-and-forth in the first half, with Justin "⁠jks⁠" Savage & co. grabbing the early lead while FaZe went on to exploit 100 Thieves' lacking B defense to end up with a one-round advantage before switching over to the Counter-Terrorist side themselves.

There, the European squad pulled away with the pistol round and although 100 Thieves managed to equalize the map at 11-11, NiKo & co. stepped up late in the half, with the Bosnian clutching a 1v2 along the way to level the series at 16-12.

For the third time in a row, FaZe were unable to get off the line first on Mirage, and this time they found it much more difficult despite big individual plays from NiKo and coldzera, as 100 Thieves put up a fantastic offense worth 11 rounds. Once AZR's squad won the second-round forcebuy in the second half, it was only a matter of time before they closed out the series at 16-7, 2-1.