BIG deny Brazil's first victory with 8-15 comeback against FURIA

European teams continue to deliver in the opening rounds of the Challengers Stage.

In front of the home crowd, FURIA failed to deliver Brazil's first win of the tournament, falling to BIG in a closely contested 19-16 game. The Brazilians couldn't close out a 15-8 lead against the Germans, losing seven straight rounds on the way to overtime. FURIA have joined 9z and 00NATION in the 0-1 bracket, with Imperial hoping to bring the first win for the domestic sides.

On the B stream match between the highest and lowest-seeded team of the Challengers Stage, OG made light work of Grayhound. The Australian team fell short of making a mark on the European combine, bowing out with a 16-5 loss. Abdul "⁠degster⁠" Gasanov was the best performer, with the Russian sniper putting up 25 frags and a 1.87 rating.

Another home-crowd favorite fell as BIG took down FURIA

FURIA utterly dominated the opening half of Vertigo after BIG picked up the first two rounds, riding the wave of hype generated by the Brazilian crowd. Their ramp hold was particularly successful, with Andrei "⁠arT⁠" Piovezan finding several openings using his patented aggression. BIG required a clutch from Florian "⁠syrsoN⁠" Rische to get another round on the board, but this was all they could manage as they headed in at half-time down 3-12.

Kaike "⁠KSCERATO⁠" Cerato produced a powerful clutch in the second pistol round to seemingly put FURIA on the brink of victory, but they fumbled to the BIG force-buy and began to bleed away rounds. The Brazilians did manage to scramble to a couple of isolated wins to get to 15, but their German counterparts were steadily grinding their way to parity; they eventually found it, forcing the game into overtime.

Johannes "⁠tabseN⁠" Wodarz and co. carried their momentum into OT, and by contrast FURIA seemed thoroughly deflated after letting such a lead slip in regulation. The German squad only allowed FURIA a single-round win as they marched to a 19-16 victory, consigning yet another South American side to an opening defeat.

IEM Rio Major 2022 Challengers StageBest of 1

BIG

Matchpage

19

16

31st October 2022

FURIA

19

Vertigo

16

OG got off to a hot 4-1 start on Inferno, before a lengthy technical issue on degster's PC delayed the match. After the pause it was much of the same for the Nemanja "⁠nexa⁠" Isaković-led team, locking out the Australian offense round after round. They found themselves in double-digits in no time, with the star duo of Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan and degster finding several multi-kills to enable their team to go into the interval with a nine-round lead.

Grayhound started the second half with a two-round streak after winning the pistol, but OG answered as soon as their economy allowed it. degster and company ended up closing the game with a comfortable 16-5 scoreline, booking their ticket in the 1-0 pool.

IEM Rio Major 2022 Challengers StageBest of 1

OG

Matchpage

16

5

31st October 2022

Grayhound

16

Inferno

5

Group Challengers Stage

1W - 0L

Bad News Eagles

OG

GamerLegion

MOUZ

BIG

0W - 0L

fnatic

Cloud9

Vitality

Evil Geniuses

Imperial

IHC

0W - 1L

FURIA

Outsiders

9z

Grayhound

00NATION