Fiend oust Movistar Riders from V4; advance to semi-finals

The Bulgarian side pulled off comebacks on Nuke and Mirage to sweep the series.

Fiend are through to the semi-finals of V4 Future Sports Festival after taking down Movistar Riders in the opening round of playoffs, securing a win from behind on the Spanish team's pick of Nuke before fighting back from a 5-13 deficit on Mirage to eliminate the Major Challengers from competition.

Another difficult test awaits Simeon "⁠dream3r⁠" Ganev's troops in their next match, where they will go up against Entropiq on Saturday at 16:30 in hopes of booking a spot in the grand final.

Movistar Riders got off to a solid start on Nuke, pushing up to a 5-1 lead on the T side before Fiend were able to break through. Double kills from Deyvid "⁠h4rn⁠" Benchev and Kamen "⁠bubble⁠" Kostadinov kicked off a string of four rounds for the Bulgarians, but they were quickly left trailing as Movistar Riders remained resilient in the closing moments of the first half, pulling ahead 9-6.

Three rounds off the break allowed Fiend to tie up the match in short order, and multi-kill rounds from Georgi "⁠SHiPZ⁠" Grigorov held Movistar Riders at bay for much of the remainder of the map. Only three rounds went the way of Alejandro "⁠alex⁠" Masanet's men, one via a key quad kill from Álvaro "⁠SunPayus⁠" García with a saved AWP, and none were strung together as Fiend were in control throughout the second half, taking the victory 16-12.

Movistar Riders seemed set to force a third map as they assumed firm control at the onset of Fiend's Mirage pick, holding a 9-3 lead on the CT side and ending the half up by five rounds. That scoreline became even more lopsided as the Spaniards converted a pistol win into three more rounds, going up 13-5, but that lead began to rapidly dwindle as Fiend got back in the running.

An impenetrable defense saw the Bulgarian side stall out Movistar Riders, who were unable to add even one more round to their tally as Fiend won eleven rounds in a row, with their stand-in SHiPZ scoring a quad kill to put his team on match point before they closed out the map, 16-13.