Eternal Fire eliminate Imperial from Roobet Cup

The Turkish team narrowly edged out a win after reverse-sweeping the series in close fashion.

Imperial have been sent packing from the Roobet Cup after falling to Eternal Fire in the Group C elimination match, with the Turkish team coming out on top of a hard-fought three-map series to take the win.

The Brazilian side seemed to be in firm control at the onset of the series as they secured a one-sided win on Nuke to go up 1-0, and even held a strong 9-2 lead on Mirage to put themselves only a handful of rounds from securing victory. However, Eternal Fire managed to fight back to overtime and narrowly edged out a win before coming on top of the Vertigo decider, keeping themselves in the tournament and setting up a decider match against MOUZ for a spot in the playoffs on Sunday at 19:00 .

Things got off to a relatively painless start for Eternal Fire on their pick of Nuke, a pistol round victory and subsequent conversions against a force-buy and anti-eco helping them up to a 3-0 lead on the T side. From there though, Imperial mounted a strong defense, three multi-kill rounds in a row from Lincoln "⁠fnx⁠" Lau helping his side claim firm control as they left almost no room for the Turkish team to gain ground en route to a 10-5 scoreline at the break.

Ricardo "⁠boltz⁠" Prass kicked off Imperial's attacking effort as he Glocked down three players to keep his side in the lead. Eternal Fire's best efforts to fight back into the map helped them add two rounds to their tally, but the deficit quickly proved too steep to overcome with all of Imperial showing up to the server as they claimed victory 16-7.

Imperial carried that momentum into Mirage, running up an 8-1 lead on the offense as Eternal Fire were left looking entirely out of sorts. An ace from Özgür "⁠woxic⁠" Eker and triple kill round from Buğra "⁠Calyx⁠" Arkın proved key in keeping their team in the running as they finally got back on the board, managing to bring themselves within three rounds of the Brazilians by halftime before further closing that gap with a pistol round and subsequent anti-eco win. Four in a row had Imperial beginning a march to the finish line as they moved up to 13 rounds, but Eternal Fire were not content to roll over and concede.

A fight all the way to overtime ensued as Ismailcan "⁠XANTARES⁠" Dörtkardeş and Ömer "⁠imoRR⁠" Karataş pieced together a handful of multi-kill rounds in an effort to stay in the series, but it remained a tight affair as Imperial also refused to let the map go without a fight. It took until triple overtime for the situation to resolve as the Turkish team finally brought an end to the back-and-forth, evening the series score and forcing a Vertigo decider to determine who would be sent packing.

XANTARES and company held on to the momentum at the start of Vertigo, going up 4-1 before Imperial came in with a response, winning eight of the next nine rounds to gain the upper hand. It was another 6-9 deficit that Eternal Fire were left facing as they swapped sides, but that gap quickly closed after a pistol win helped them stay in control. From there, Imperial found it difficult to crack through the Turkish defenses, garnering four rounds to keep the score close but ultimately proving unable to halt Eternal Fire's momentum as imoRR closed things out with a quad kill to secure victory, 16-13.