The biggest stories and plays from day two of IEM Rio

19-4-2023 04:12

Quickly catch up with some of the key moments and highlights from day two at IEM Rio.

FURIA deliver on home soil

FURIA channeled some of the magic from last year's IEM Rio Major, making it to the playoffs of their home tournament after breaking one of their long-time curses.

The Brazilians passed fnatic in overtime on the opening day, before Andrei "⁠arT⁠" Piovezan and company faced off against FaZe on day two in a matchup that has not been kind to them in recent years, as they lost the last three encounters against Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen's team, dating back to 2021.

This time, though, FURIA had the upper hand in what was a surprisingly convincing series victory, 16-8 on Mirage and 16-13 on Nuke. Kaike "⁠KSCERATO⁠" Cerato topped the charts as usual, but everyone had their moments and pulled their own weight on the way to the playoffs.

Later in the day, Cloud9 joined the Brazilians in the Group B upper bracket final and in the playoffs. The Russian-Kazakh side had Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov firing on all cylinders and pulling them out of trouble several times in a tough matchup against OG, who likely ended up pulling their hair out over some missed opportunities in 14-16 losses on Mirage and Overpass.

Not so to-the-nines

Four more teams were eliminated on day two of the tournament. Group B's lower bracket matches went about as expected — fnatic did lose the opening map to 9z but otherwise dominated the South American squad, as did Vitality against MIBR.

9INE had been expected to do some damage following their flawless qualification for the BLAST.tv Paris Major and it's safe to say they delivered on their promise, but the Poles were ultimately heartbroken after they let their Group A lower bracket matchup against Ninjas in Pyjamas slip.

Olek "⁠hades⁠" Miskiewicz's squad extended their winning streak on Vertigo to 11 in a row in the series and breezed to series point on Mirage, but went on to give away seven opportunities to close the match and lost the map in overtime, as Kristian "⁠k0nfig⁠" Wienecke and Fredrik "⁠REZ⁠" Sterner led the way to the comeback for Ninjas in Pyjamas. 9INE's spirits looked broken on Overpass as they won just three rounds on the CT side, which proved too much to recover from despite an impressive return to form on the offense.

Heroic call in Xizt after jabbi sidelined

HEROIC looked to be in cruise control after starting their elimination series versus The MongolZ off with a dominant showing on Inferno, but suffered a setback just nine rounds into Overpass as Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard stepped off the server due to feeling unwell. The 19-year-old could be seen clutching his head mid-round, and had been feeling off for at least the last two days, with Rasmus "⁠sjuush⁠" Beck revealing after the game that HEROIC even played a practice match with coach Richard "⁠Xizt⁠" Landström in case this very situation arose.

The Swedish veteran didn't seem to miss a beat upon entering the server, finding his own share of the frags and even grabbing one or two pivotal multi-kills for his side. If it wasn't for Sodbayar "⁠Techno⁠" Munkhbold managing to slip by Xizt toward the end of the map and flanking B to put The MongolZ on match point, HEROIC might even have taken the series in two maps, but it ended up going to Mirage (where the Danes dominated, 16-6, to take the win). With a lower bracket final elimination match against Ninjas in Pyjamas coming up on Wednesday at 19:30 , HEROIC will be praying that jabbi makes a swift recovery overnight so they can make it to the Jeunesse Arena.

Date	Matches
IEM Rio 2023
18/04/2023	Vitality Finished 2:0 MIBR	Match
18/04/2023	9z Finished 1:2 fnatic	Match
18/04/2023	FaZe Finished 0:2 FURIA	Match
18/04/2023	Ninjas in Pyjamas Finished 2:1 9INE	Match
18/04/2023	OG Finished 0:2 Cloud9	Match
18/04/2023	The MongolZ Finished 1:2 HEROIC	Match

IEM Rio: Day two as it happened

Player of the day

The player of the day award goes to sh1ro, without whom Cloud9 would have been in serious trouble against OG.

The AWPer's superb performance on Mirage made up for other key members going missing and allowed Cloud9 to win the opening map by the skin of their teeth, and he added another solid map in a second close affair on Overpass.

sh1ro vs. OG (Mirage 16-14, Overpass 16-14):

Score (K-A-D): 56-12-37
Rating: 1.35
ADR: 96

A special shoutout goes to Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut for his 1.61-rated series performance against MIBR.