IEM Cologne 2022Cloud9 put up stalwart defense to ease past Outsiders
Vladislav "nafany" Gorshkov's troops will next face the winner of FURIA versus Astralis.
Cloud9 have kicked off their IEM Cologne campaign with a dominant victory over Outsiders, starting the series off by claiming an easy victory on Dust2 before coming back from a 4-11 deficit on Ancient with an impenetrable CT-side performance.
The victory marks an important start to the tournament for Cloud9, who fell in the Roobet Cup to BIG just one week prior to be eliminated in 3-4th place. Prior to that, they had won IEM Dallas, offline momentum which they now look to carry forth in Germany as they take aim at the LANXESS Arena.
The opening round victory sets nafany's side up against the winner of the match between FURIA and Astralis, which will play out on Friday at 12:30 . Outsiders, meanwhile, drop to the lower bracket and will be fighting for their tournament lives against the loser of the same matchup, with a long road to the playoffs now ahead as they will need to win three best-of-three series to advance.
Dust2 had little to write home about for Outsiders as they were entirely unable to crack through Cloud9's defenses, a strong first half effort helmed by Sergey "Ax1Le" Rykhtorov seeing his team dismantle their countrymen in one-sided fashion. Initial multi-kill rounds by nafany were followed up by the IEM Dallas MVP, who ended the first half with a 17-3 K-D before further adding to that tally following the side swap, sitting upon a 20-3 record before Dmitry "sh1ro" Sokolov helped to take things over the line, closing out the map 16-6.
Cloud9 seemed set to maintain that level of control as their pick of Ancient got underway, back-to-back multi-frag rounds from Timofey "interz" Yakushin helping to win the pistol and convert against the ensuing eco for a 2-0 start. From there though, it was Outsiders who put on a masterclass defense of their own, dominating on the favored side of the map thanks in part to strong fragging from Petr "fame" Bolyshev and Dzhami "Jame" Ali as they conceded just two additional rounds en route to a 11-4 lead at the break.
Once the sides swapped over though, it was domination from Cloud9 once again, a complete team effort ensuring that a swift defeat would not be in the cards. Rather, it was a completely impenetrable defense that was showcased, the rounds that Outsiders managed to get onto bombsites resulting in a defuse in all but one occasion as Cloud9 cruised to a 16-12 finish to take the series.
 Cloud9 |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 42 - 25 | +17 | 87.8 | 76.0% | 1.36 | |
| 36 - 23 | +13 | 74.0 | 78.0% | 1.30 | |
| 37 - 29 | +8 | 83.8 | 78.0% | 1.25 | |
| 36 - 27 | +9 | 72.4 | 74.0% | 1.16 | |
| 33 - 29 | +4 | 77.9 | 68.0% | 1.06 |
 Outsiders |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 - 31 | -1 | 65.9 | 60.0% | 0.94 | |
| 28 - 39 | -11 | 66.0 | 56.0% | 0.81 | |
| 30 - 37 | -7 | 65.6 | 52.0% | 0.78 | |
| 25 - 38 | -13 | 60.3 | 52.0% | 0.70 | |
| 19 - 39 | -20 | 44.7 | 56.0% | 0.55 |
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