Movistar Riders eliminate MIBR, Entropiq knock Renegades out in Katowice

The two winning teams are through to the final round of the lower bracket.

Movistar Riders and Entropiq live to fight for a spot at IEM Katowice after winning their first round matches in the lower bracket, taking out MIBR and Renegades, respectively.

Both teams will have tall orders if they want to make IEM Katowice’s group stage, however, as Entropiq will face a MOUZ that showed glimpses of brilliance in their opening matches against GODSENT and FaZe with very strong performances by the recently promoted academy player Ádám "⁠torzsi⁠" Torzsás, despite ultimately losing to Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen’s men.

Movistar Riders, meanwhile, will be looking to take revenge on Ninjas in Pyjamas, their executioners in a close IEM Fall quarter-final series, where the two teams last met.

Movistar Riders showed prowess on the CT side of Ancient early on, with Alejandro "⁠mopoz⁠" Fernández-Quejo Cano impossible to deal with in cave as he foiled mid control plans by MIBR round in and round out reaching 19 frags in the half as the Spanish team went up 13-2. MIBR didn’t let up and tried to bring things back on the defense after winning the pistol round and following it up four times, but in the end Alejandro "⁠alex⁠" Masanet’s men managed to cross the finish line without too many issues 16-10 before jumping into their own map pick.

The Spaniards got ahead early on after winning the first pistol round on the attacking side of Inferno, but MIBR were quick to react with guns in play, going on to double Riders’ score 3-6 before Álvaro "⁠SunPayus⁠" García and company could retort. Despite the slow start, the Spanish team turned things around with a strong ending to the first half to take a round lead into the CT side, where they were the stronger team on the server to end the series 2-0 and knock out the Brazilians.

The match between Renegades and Entropiq didn’t look good for the Australian squad from the get-go, as Alistair "⁠aliStair⁠" Johnston and company needed a good showing on their map pick on Nuke before heading over to Entropiq’s bastion of Ancient. It didn’t go well for David "⁠Kingfisher⁠" Kingsford’s men, however, as they were unable to find cracks in a solid defense by the Russians, winning only three rounds.

Losing the second pistol round painted a grim picture for the Aussies, although a forcebuy win was the first step in what would need to be a miraculous comeback, but it wasn’t to be, as Aleksei "⁠El1an⁠" Gusev and company stayed strong and were able to bounce back two rounds later to win their last three rounds needed on the attack to close the map out 16-6.

Entropiq did not forgive on their pick of Ancient, getting ahead on the typically harder terrorist side early on despite losing the pistol round, winning eight rounds in a row before securing double digits by the end of the half with Vladislav "⁠Krad⁠" Kravchenko putting up an excellent performance. The Russian squad then won the map out without giving Renegades a chance in the second half to secure their spot in the final round of the lower bracket.