9z keep Major dream alive, FURIA secure Legends stage spot

9z won their game and earned a place in the decider bracket to fight for a place at the Major, while FURIA beat MIBR for a Legends stage spot.

The fifth round of the Swiss system is underway, with 9z able to secure their place in the 6th-8th place decider bracket, where they will face the winners of paiN versus Case and Evil Geniuses versus Party Astronauts for the final spot at the Major.

At the same time, we got the Legends stage team from the Americas RMR, as FURIA beat MIBR to end what has been a straightforward qualifying campaign for the Andrei "⁠arT⁠" Piovezan led team, not losing a single map in the entire tournament.

The showdown between São Caetano and 9z started on Mirage where it was the latter who got the better start, losing the pistol round but quickly proving why they picked the map as they got up to a 9-6 lead. As they switched sides however, São Caetano looked more comfortable and started closing down the deficit, but 9z did just enough to force out the rounds they needed to win the map 16-13.

Next up was Ancient, which went in accordance to the current meta, as both teams found more success on their CT sides. 9z were able to amass 11 rounds on theirs, with São Caetano being unable to string more than two successful rounds in a row. Once Gustavo "⁠SHOOWTiME⁠" Gonçalves's team got to the defensive half, they won the pistol round which enabled them to start a comeback, slowly getting closer to their opponents. But 9z were able to keep the Brazilians very honest in terms of finances, meaning a couple of won rounds propelled them to a 14-9 lead, with São Caetano having no economy to fall back on. 9z took advantage of that and took the map 16-9, with most of the credit going to Franco "⁠dgt⁠" Garcia for a 34 kill performance.

The 1st place decider match was played to determine which of the teams will secure a Legends stage place in the upcoming Major, with FURIA dispatching of MIBR in a 2-0 series.

The first map of the series was Nuke, where FURIA was able to get a decent terrorist side going, winning enough rounds to go into half time with just a one round deficit on the back of André "⁠drop⁠" Abreu's 1v2 clutch in the last round.

When the teams switched sides however, MIBR were powerless against FURIA's defensive side, winning only one round in the entire half after being repeatedly shut down by the likes of Rafael "⁠saffee⁠" Costa, who had another impressive map.

The second map of the series was MIBR's pick of Overpass, where they didn't manage to find much more success on the terrorist side, with Yuri "⁠yuurih⁠" Santos monster performance locking them out of sites as he averaged 180 damage per round on the defensive side. Just three rounds on the terrorist side weren't enough for MIBR to mount any sort of challenge once the sides switched, as FURIA closed out the map 16-4.