Cloud9 take down Evil Geniuses in Road to Rio

Cloud9 have added a second win to their tally by defeating world No. 7 Evil Geniuses in a three-map series.

Peter "⁠stanislaw⁠" Jarguz's troops are left facing an uphill climb in the North American division of ESL One: Road to Rio as they now reside in fifth place in the Group A standings, with their only victory coming from a 2-0 win over Orgless. The Canadian side announced their withdrawal from the tournament on Tuesday, awarding all other teams in the group with a default series win.

Both Cloud9 and Evil Geniuses entered the series with a 1-1 record, the former squad being felled by Triumph in their opening match and the latter conceding a 2-1 series to 100 Thieves. The South African-American squad kicked off their pick of Dust2 with a 10-5 lead, and managed to stave off a stellar showing from Vincent "⁠Brehze⁠" Cayonte in the second half to take the win. EG answered back with a dominant performance on Nuke, but Overpass was all Cloud9 as Johnny "⁠JT⁠" Theodosiou's side closed out the series with a 16-9 map win.

oSee's AWP helped Cloud9 grab wins on Dust2 and Overpass

Despite initially facing a 1-3 deficit on their pick of Dust2, Cloud9 demonstrated a solid CT side that allowed for them to shut down Brehze for much of the half, with the star EG fragger ending with four frags to his name. The 21-year-old turned the tides following the side swap however, securing four frags in the pistol before continuing to add multi-kills to his tally, becoming the catalyst for EG to rally back and take the lead 13-10. Cloud9's last-ditch effort had the two teams battle into overtime to decide a champion, and it was there that the AWPs of Aran "⁠Sonic⁠" Groesbeek and Josh "⁠oSee⁠" Ohm combined to put Cloud9 back in the driver's seat, taking the map 19-17.

JT and company maintained control at the onset of Nuke, answering Evil Geniuses' pistol win with a force-buy to gain the upper hand and take a 6-2 lead. From there however, momentum swung in the favour of EG as Tsvetelin "⁠CeRq⁠" Dimitrov and stanislaw led their team to a 9-6 scoreline at the break. On the defense, EG wasted little time in taking their map pick over the line, conceding just two additional rounds before closing out the map, 16-8.

The tables quickly turned on the decider, Overpass, as Cloud9's stalwart defense kept EG at bay for much of the first half, seeing nine uncontested rounds go the way of the CT side before a reply came in from the Evil Geniuses camp. Four rounds towards the end of the half provided a small boon for stanislaw's side as they swapped over to the defense, where they were able to briefly keep Cloud9 at bay with a streak of five rounds before the series was brought to an end, 16-9, granting Cloud9 their second win in the Road to Rio.

ESL One: Road to Rio - North AmericaBest of 3

Cloud9

Matchpage

2

1

28th April 2020

Evil Geniuses

19

Dust2

17

8

Nuke

16

16

Overpass

9

Cloud9	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Josh 'oSee' OhmoSee	64 - 50	+14	81.0	75.3%	1.20
Aran 'Sonic' GroesbeekSonic	64 - 54	+10	84.3	71.8%	1.18
Ian 'motm' Hardymotm	55 - 60	-5	67.2	63.5%	0.98
Johnny 'JT' TheodosiouJT	49 - 61	-12	69.0	69.4%	0.93
Ricky 'floppy' Kemeryfloppy	51 - 56	-5	66.5	68.2%	0.90

Evil Geniuses	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Vincent 'Brehze' CayonteBrehze	71 - 56	+15	85.5	71.8%	1.21
Ethan 'Ethan' ArnoldEthan	66 - 57	+9	85.3	67.1%	1.15
Tarik 'tarik' Celiktarik	51 - 60	-9	67.9	63.5%	1.00
Peter 'stanislaw' Jarguzstanislaw	46 - 53	-7	60.4	63.5%	0.94
Tsvetelin 'CeRq' DimitrovCeRq	47 - 57	-10	59.2	68.2%	0.92