Elisa Masters Espoo 2022BIG defeat 500 to square up with Sprout in Elisa Masters semi-finals
Johannes "tabseN" Wodarz continued his streak of great performances at the Finnish LAN.
BIG secured a Elisa Masters Espoo semi-finals after taking down 500 2-0 in the first round of playoffs. The German squad barely came out ahead on Nuke (16-13) thanks to a couple of crucial rounds from Karim "Krimbo" Moussa, before closing the series with a fantastic offensive half on Inferno (16-9).
tabseN's men came into the event without their star AWPer Florian "syrsoN" Rische, who is out with a COVID-19 infection, but still managed to claim a top-four finish without a dedicated marksman. BIG will challenge Sprout for a spot in the final on Saturday at 15:30 .
The defeat puts an end to 500's adventure in Espoo, but the Bulgarians can look back at a successful run in the group stage, in which they took best-of-one victories over Astralis, Complexity, Bad News Eagles, and SAW.
tabseN has been the standout performer for BIG at Elisa Masters, and the in-game leader carried his form into the T side of Nuke as he propelled his team to a 6-3 lead over 500 with a 16-11 K-D and a 1.53 rating in the first half. The Bulgarians struggled to maintain a healthy economy and were forced to approach many rounds with just Deagles or SMGs, but a force buy victory on the twelfth round allowed 500 to retake control of the game and string four consecutive wins to close the half with a slight 8-7 lead.
500 stole the second pistol round and briefly extended their lead to 10-7 before BIG found their mark on the CT side. It was a closely contested half as the Bulgarians were never far behind in terms of score, and it took two Krimbo triple kills in the late stages of the half to gift BIG a narrow 16-13 victory.
500 kicked off their T side on Inferno in great form and claimed an early 5-0 lead on their map pick courtesy of Georgi "SHiPZ" Grigorov's opening frags. It took a few rounds for BIG to find their footing, but a retake on the B site kickstarted an uncontested nine-round winning streak, which secured the half win for the Germans. Krimbo was a joy to watch, but it was Josef "faveN" Baumann and Elias "s1n" Stein who topped the scoreboard before switching sides.
The Bulgarians earned their fourth pistol round of the series to claim a perfect record across the two maps, but BIG were quick to respond with a force buy to retake the momentum. Nikolay "niki1" Pantaleev's team struggled to mount an effective defense and only stole three rounds as the Germans cruised to a 16-9 victory.
BIG's next clash is slated for Saturday at 15:30 , when they will face Sprout in a best-of-three semi-final for a spot in the title bout. The two teams have clashed twice in the past two weeks, at the IEM Rio Major and in the Elisa Masters' group stage, and both times it was tabseN and company who came out ahead, 16-11, in best-of-ones on Vertigo.
  BIG |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50 - 29 | +21 | 94.1 | 85.2% | 1.43 | |
| 40 - 30 | +10 | 75.6 | 85.2% | 1.24 | |
| 37 - 28 | +9 | 79.5 | 75.9% | 1.16 | |
| 37 - 34 | +3 | 74.0 | 74.1% | 1.13 | |
| 37 - 41 | -4 | 73.1 | 68.5% | 1.06 |
 500 |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 38 - 41 | -3 | 72.0 | 70.4% | 0.97 | |
| 32 - 39 | -7 | 75.6 | 63.0% | 0.92 | |
| 34 - 43 | -9 | 73.5 | 57.4% | 0.91 | |
| 30 - 39 | -9 | 63.6 | 64.8% | 0.87 | |
| 28 - 40 | -12 | 53.7 | 64.8% | 0.78 |
Laurențiu 'lauNX' Țârlea
Johnny 'JT' Theodosiou
Ricky 'floppy' Kemery
Håkon 'hallzerk' Fjærli
Justin 'FaNg' Coakley
Rigon 'rigoN' Gashi
JamYoungisUnderrated
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Cucumber))
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CiroDiMarzio
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