FaZe secure playoff berth in Cologne

Spirit will have to make their way through the lower bracket after a 0-2 defeat against the international squad.

In a match casted by Anders "⁠Anders⁠" Blume and Chad "⁠SPUNJ⁠" Burchill, FaZe secured their presence at the IEM Cologne playoffs in the LANXESS Arena with a 2-0 victory over the youthful Spirit, whose Robert "⁠Patsi⁠" Isyanov put forth a commendable series in the Group B upper bracket semi-finals.

The first big blow to Spirit came on Ancient, where they weren’t able to stop FaZe’s offensives in the second half despite posting six rounds of their own on the attack. On Nuke it was the opposite, as FaZe put in five attacks before putting up a wall on the defense to edge their map pick 16-13.

FaZe still have one more match to play, however, the Group B final against Astralis to jump straight into the semi-finals, while Spirit will play FURIA in the lower bracket semi-final for survival in the tournament.

Patsi got a whopping four kills in a clean first round for Spirit on the attacking side of Ancient. The youngster went on to hit 13 kills in 6 rounds as his team went up 5-1. FaZe finally showed signs of life and brought it back to within one before Spirit retaliated. Only momentarily, however, as FaZe went on to win the half out to set a 9-6 score on the defense.

Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen led the way to victory with a 1.31 rating, 22 kills and 91.1 ADR, as FaZe bounced back after losing their pistol win advantage against a forcebuy which brought Spirit to within one, 11-10, winning out the five last rounds in the Russian team’s pick 16-10.

Spirit came into the second map of the series, Nuke, up against the wall, having lost their map pick. Leonid "⁠chopper⁠" Vishnyakov and his men won the opening pistol round on the CT side, but chaos ensued as forcebuys were traded in the following two rounds up to 3-3. Spirit then managed to put up a solid defense for the rest of the half to take a 10-5 lead.

After the switch Spirit won the second pistol round, but FaZe instantly retaliated to start closing the gap on the scoreboard. Patsi and company failed to win their first rifle round, distances continuing to shorten, but made it up in the following forcebuy with pistols. Ultimately, FaZe kept up the wall on the defense, bringing proceedings to an end in 29 rounds, 16-13.