Heroic come back against G2 in overtime, ENCE defeat Outsiders

Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen's men failed to close out the match on Vertigo despite a great run on the CT side.

The third round of the Legends Stage started off with two matches involving teams displaying a 1-1 record. Both HEROIC and ENCE came out victorious from their games, putting them one win away from qualifying for the playoffs of the PGL Major Antwerp 2022.

Meanwhile, G2 and Outsiders have been relegated to the 1-2 pool where they will fight for tournament survival, needing two consecutive best-of-three victories to advance to the next stage.

HEROIC and G2 faced off on Vertigo. Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund pulled off a quick 4K on the opening round to gift the early advantage to the defenders, but the Danes would not run away with the half thanks to a force buy conversion by the European mix on round 4. Nemanja "⁠huNter-⁠" Kovač would prove to be G2 most important player on the T side, providing opening frags and multi-kills to keep the half as close as possible. The last round would see the CTs take a victory with a few upgraded pistols and utility to edge the half 8-7.

Another pistol round conversion would extend HEROIC's advantage to 11-7, but as soon as the CTs were able to afford proper equipment, it was one-way traffic in favor of G2. Aleksib's men stole seven consecutive rounds to take the lead, before failing to close the game and being forced into overtime by the Danes. Despite conceding the first two rounds of extra time, HEROIC did not lose their cool as they took the last T round and went flaless on the CT side to take the map 19-17.

Meanwhile on the B stream, ENCE and Outsiders battled it out on Mirage in another 1-1 match. The European squad kicked off a dominant half with a 3v5 retake on the B bombsite, giving the CTs the early 3-0 advantage. It did not take long for Paweł "⁠dycha⁠" Dycha and Lotan "⁠Spinx⁠" Giladi to get rolling, with the duo taking over the sever during the 11-4 half.

A 3K by Aleksei "⁠Qikert⁠" Golubev on the second pistol gave Outsiders a fighting chance, allowing the Eastern European squad to reduce the deficit to just 8-11. Unfortunately for them, Spinx and Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer converted a 2v4 post-plant on A to stop their losing streak and retake control of the game. From there, ENCE would remain undefeated all the way to a 16-8 victory.