V4 Future Sports Festival heads to playoffs; BIG, Entropiq through to semi-finals

The playoff bracket for the event in Hungary has been set following the conclusion of the second day of the main event.

BIG and Entropiq have emerged victorious from the upper bracket final of their respective groups at V4 Future Sports Festival, advancing directly to the semi-finals of the six-team, single-elimination playoff bracket that will play out over the weekend to determine who will take home the lion's share of the $326,360 prize pool.

Enterprise and Fiend, meanwhile, will start their playoff campaigns in the opening round, where they face stiff competition in the form of Gambit and Movistar Riders, two teams that stumbled in their first matches of the event but recovered in series play to remain alive in the tournament.

BIG were the first to secure their berth after besting Fiend in a two-map series, headlined by a strong showing from Florian "⁠syrsoN⁠" Rische on Mirage. The 25-year-old AWPer was the driving force in a map of narrow margins, in which the two teams remained deadlocked at halftime, split by just one round.

The Bulgarian side showed poise at the start of their defensive effort, moving up to match point as they held BIG to just four rounds. However, the match didn't end in regulation as syrsoN and company fought back to force overtime, where they were able to narrowly prevail and take the map, 19-17.

Fiend recovered as BIG's map pick of Dust2 got underway, racing to a 7-2 lead on the defense before the German team finally began to consistently break through. A 9-6 lead at the break for Kamen "⁠bubble⁠" Kostadinov's troops gave way to a stalwart defense from BIG, who won six rounds off the break before crushing Fiend's hopes of forcing a third map, closing out the series with a 16-11 victory.

Entropiq were put to the test early on against Enterprise, only just scraping by on Ancient with a 16-14 map win after a back-and-forth brawl throughout the map.

Andrej "⁠ADEJIS⁠" Kameništiak led his team from the front foot to answer back on Entropiq's pick of Nuke, getting off to a 5-0 start before recovering from a string of four rounds from the Russian side to end the half up 11-4, closing it out shortly into the second half to force a Mirage decider.

There, Entropiq took firm control, trading blows early on to trail 2-4 before absolutely dominating the remainder of the map. Viktor "⁠Lack1⁠" Boldyrev was the pivotal factor for the Russian team, who won fourteen rounds in a row to convert the win in firm fashion, led by the 22-year-old rifler's 27-8 K-D, 124 ADR, and 2.03 rating on the map.

The bracket draw and schedule for the remaining matches in the tournament looks as follows:

Friday, November 19

13:00 Gambit vs. Enterprise (BO3)
16:30 Movistar Riders vs. Fiend (BO3)

Saturday, November 20

13:00 BIG vs. Gambit/Enterprise winner (BO3)
16:30 Entropiq vs. Movistar/Fiend winner (BO3)

Sunday, November 21

15:00 Grand Final (BO5)