MAD Lions advance to ICE Challenge semi-final over OG

With a 2-0 victory over OG (16-12 Nuke, 16-12 Train), MAD Lions have secured a spot in the semi-final of the ICE Challenge where they will face MOUZ.

OG's second LAN outing has finished with a 5-6th placing, with their next outing due in two weeks time, at BLAST Premier. Meanwhile, MAD Lions continue their streak of LAN top-fours, and will try to push that further by taking down MOUZ tomorrow.

The quarter-final series started on Nuke, the pick of OG, with the international team taking a 5-1 lead early on. MAD Lions were picking up sporadic rounds and keeping their opponents' money low in the ones they lost, but OG, spearheaded by Mateusz "⁠mantuu⁠" Wilczewski and Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen, were resilient and went up 9-3 shortly.

Rasmus "⁠sjuush⁠" Beck's double kill on the CTs aggressing Lobby got the Danes their fourth and then they finally chained rounds together, breaking their opponents' bank and finishing the half 9-6 down. sjuush was pivotal in the pistol as well, seeing MAD Lions edge closer to equalizing the scoreline. That finally happened as Nicolai "⁠HUNDEN⁠" Petersen clutched a 1v1, after which his team took over the lead and closed out the map with ease, 16-12.

The start to Train was a back-and-forth one as OG won the pistol, lost the anti-force, and then won a force of their own, which gave them a foothold on the T side of Train. Frederik "⁠acoR⁠" Gyldstrand's impressive AWPing kept MAD Lions in the game, however, eventually seeing them take a 9-6 lead before the switch.

mantuu picked up a triple, claiming the CT pistol for his side, and OG went on to get six out of the first seven rounds on the defense as Nathan "⁠NBK-⁠" Schmitt fragged out. HUNDEN and co. then found a weakness in the B bombsite, making their way onto it for a couple of rounds in a row before throwing in a fake to go 14-12 up. At that point, OG couldn't find an answer to the Danes offenses, resulting in a 16-12 victory for MAD Lions.