sh1ro stars as Cloud9 overcome Imperial in IEM Rio Major elimination series

The Russian team came out victorious after two intense overtime maps against the Brazilian veterans.

Cloud9 have sent Imperial packing from the IEM Rio Major after edging out narrow victories on Overpass and Vertigo, claiming revenge against the Brazilian team who had eliminated them in the Legends Stage of PGL Major Antwerp.

The victory lies in the hands of Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov, who had immense individual impact throughout the series and particularly on Vertigo, continuing his stellar form in the event so far. Sergey "⁠Ax1Le⁠" Rykhtorov remained curiously absent from the server and was a part of the reason Cloud9 struggled, but the team managed to take things over the line thanks to their 21-year-old AWPer.

The series was a heartbreaking end to Imperial's run in their home event, one in which they conceded 13 match points combined between the two maps that were played. Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo, Fernando "⁠fer⁠" Alvarenga, and Lincoln "⁠fnx⁠" Lau are still set to return when play reaches the arena though, hitting the stage for the showmatch as a part of a Luminosity throwback lineup.

sh1ro got thing started on Overpass, scoring multi-frags en route to his team pushing up to a 5-0 lead. A response finally came in from Imperial on round six, a victory which they chained into a streak of five rounds in order to tie up the game thanks to multi-frag rounds from fer, Vinicius "⁠VINI⁠" Figueiredo, and Marcelo "⁠chelo⁠" Cespedes. The end stages of the half were firmly in control of Cloud9 though, thanks in part to Timofey "⁠interz⁠" Yakushin coming alive to shut down B bombsite attacks and help his team pull ahead 9-6 at the break.

The narrative of the map completely changed once Imperial were on the CT side, a triple kill from chelo in the pistol kicking off a dominant defensive performance from the Brazilian team as they surged into the lead by winning seven rounds in a row.

Cloud9 won two of their own before Imperial managed another two rounds for a 15-11 lead, but four match points were failed to be converted as Vladislav "⁠nafany⁠" Gorshkov's men fought their way to overtime. There, the IEM Dallas champions reigned supreme, winning four in a row to steal away the map victory.

Another imperious showing on the defense from Imperial kicked off Vertigo, with Cloud9 mustering just one round in the span of the first eleven rounds. That finally changed toward the end of the half as the Russian team clawed back four rounds to close the deficit, but they were quickly left staring down match point once again following the side swap as Imperial pushed up to a 15-6 lead following a quad kill from chelo.

sh1ro refused to allow his team to concede the map though, and stepped up massively with the AWP by shutting down Imperial round after round. He was Cloud9's saving grace, crucially denying Imperial the map win and helping recover a number of disadvantages for his team, leading the way in a nine-round spree to force overtime and ending regulation with a 35-21 K-D.

sh1ro's reign of terror continued in overtime, where he was joined by Abay "⁠HObbit⁠" Khassenov in closing out crucial rounds for Cloud9. Imperial fought valiantly to force a second overtime, but were unable to halt the onslaught brought on by the young Russian AWPer, ultimately conceding the map 22-19.