Gambit beat NIP to secure playoffs berth; Liquid eliminate mousesports at IEM Cologne

The Russian side have reached their first LAN event playoffs since becoming the world's best team.

Gambit have ensured themselves a spot in the playoffs at IEM Cologne after taking down Ninjas in Pyjamas 2-1 in Group A’s upper bracket. The Russian team await the winner of G2 and BIG in the next round to fight for a direct path to the semi-finals, while Ninjas in Pyjamas will drop down to the lower bracket. Meanwhile, MOUZ are the first team to be eliminated from the main event after a 2-1 loss to Liquid in Group A's lower round 1, leaving Christopher "⁠dexter⁠" Nong's team with their heads in their hands just six weeks after winning Flashpoint 3.

Ninjas in Pyjamas took the fight straight to Gambit on their pick of Ancient to earn an 8-2 T side lead against little resistance, but the Russian side went into damage control mode to reduce the deficit at halftime. With momentum building up, Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov & co. began to piece together rounds of their own with success on the A site to take the lead for the first time, but a Hampus "⁠hampus⁠" Poser 4K halted their progress. The economic disparity was clear moving forward as Ninjas in Pyjamas overpowered their opponents and put together seven in a row to win 16-10.

A reinvigorated Gambit came out of the gates hot on Inferno with the previous map loss a distant memory. Abay "⁠HObbit⁠" Khassenov and Vladislav "⁠nafany⁠" Gorshkov stepped up their performances massively with huge damage outputs to storm to an 11-4 halftime lead before closing out proceedings comfortably on the defence for a 16-5 decimation.

Dust2 was left to determine a victor, and Ninjas in Pyjamas looked to have regrouped ready to stand their ground against the world No.1 team. But after a 5-4 advantage early on, the Swedes collapsed and Gambit capitalized mercilessly. nafany and sh1ro proved too much to handle moving forward as a 16-8 scoreline soon materialised to lock down the series win.

The deadly Nuke duo of Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool and David "⁠frozen⁠" Čerňanský (1.25 and 1.24 average rating over the last three months) was successfully dealt with by Liquid in the elimination series, with the North American side muting the usually lethal pair to secure the victory on their opponent’s map pick. MOUZ responded by claiming Dust2 from Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip & co, as ropz awakened to post a 27-12 KDD and 10 multi-kill rounds on the way to a 16-12 victory.

With tournament survival on the line, MOUZ came out all guns blazing on Inferno to claim a 10-5 lead on their offence and quickly added another with a pistol round success on the CT side. Liquid immediately hit back with a force buy and kept the ball rolling to showcase their own dominant offence with a mirrored half to leave the score tied at the end of regulation. It took quadruple overtime to separate the two teams as Liquid eventually came out on top 28-25 to live to see another day.