Cloud9 beat NIP at cs_summit 7 to clinch first win with Xeppaa

The Swedish side stays alive in the tournament as they'll have another chance to make it to the playoffs via the last-chance stage.

Cloud9 have defeated Ninjas in Pyjamas in a three-map series in Group C at cs_summit 7, which sees Alex "⁠ALEX⁠" McMeekin's squad move forward in the lower bracket of the group and set up a rematch against FURIA in the decider.

Meanwhile, Ninjas in Pyjamas came out on top of a tiebreaker between the three last-placed teams, ahead of Complexity on map difference and ahead of FaZe on round difference. That sees the Swedes advance to the last-chance stage, while the Benjamin "⁠blameF⁠" Bremer-led side and Marcelo "⁠coldzera⁠" David & co. have been eliminated from the tournament.

Cloud9 took a long time to warm up into the series, with their Dust2 pick going awry early on as Ninjas in Pyjamas got off to a flawless start on the defense with nine consecutive rounds. ALEX's AWP play towards the end of the half gave the European mixture a chance, but their hopes dwindled away once the Swedes won the second pistol round and put salt in Cloud9's wound after turning around back-to-back 2v5 situations.

The roles were reversed on Overpass, where C9 began on the CT side and strung nine together after a second-round forcebuy win, courtesy of Patrick "⁠es3tag⁠" Hansen's quad-kill starting with just an MP9. The ALEX-led side went on to pick up an 11-4 half and Erick "⁠Xeppaa⁠" Bach's quad-kill in the second pistol round put them within two rounds of victory, which took Cloud9 a while to squeeze through but they did so after a respectable comeback attempt from the Swedes for a 16-11 equalizer.

It came down to the deciding Train. An early lead went the way of Cloud9 there on the back of two triples from es3tag and one from the newcomer, Xeppaa, before Simon "⁠twist⁠" Eliasson responded with back-to-back 1v3 clutches on the A bombsite to put Ninjas in Pyjamas on the board. The two sides went on to trade rounds back and forth, with C9 coming out on top to claim a 9-6 advantage as they headed over to the offense.

twist added another big clutch to his name in the second half, but his heroic efforts were rendered meaningless once Cloud9 took control with guns in hand, running away with the map 16-12 despite losing to a pistol buy along the way.