Cloud9 edge out OG to guarantee playoffs in Rio

Cloud9 salvaged late deficits on both Mirage and Overpass to secure a tight 2-0 victory over OG.

Cloud9 have secured a spot in the playoffs of IEM Rio after beating OG 2-0 in the Group B upper bracket semi-finals (Mirage 16-14, Overpass 16-14).

The Russian-Kazakh squad moves on to the upper final, where they will play FURIA on Wednesday at 23:00 to find out who gets to skip the quarter-final stage of the tournament. OG fall to the lower bracket and are set on a collision course with fnatic at 16:00 .

Cloud9 sealed a hard-earned victory over OG to make it to playoffs

The victory was hard-earned from Cloud9. The favorites struggled for most of Mirage and had key players in Sergey "⁠Ax1Le⁠" Rykhtorov and Abay "⁠HObbit⁠" Khassenov go missing. Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov was there from the start, though, and together with Timur "⁠buster⁠" Tulepov the AWPer turned around a couple of 2v4 situations early in the game and a 2v3 retake at 12-14 to salvage the map for his team.

The AWPer ended the first map with a 31-17 score (1.54 rating) and continued to put up solid numbers on Overpass. Cloud9 got off to a great start on the map but ended up having to salvage another tough position late, but turned it around from down 11-12 to secure the series.

Cloud9's qualification for the playoffs offers little consolation for their last week's failure to qualify for the BLAST.tv Paris Major. When speaking to Janko "⁠YNk⁠" Paunović, Sudhen "⁠Bleh⁠" Wahengbam, and Freya "⁠Freya⁠" Spiers in an interview on the analyst desk, Vladislav "⁠nafany⁠" Gorshkov admitted the team still feels dejected following the disappointing campaign at the European RMR B tournament.

"Terrible, actually," the in-game leader said when asked how he feels after beating OG. "Even if we won, it's still sad because we lost a chance to compete at the Major, and for everyone who lost the chance to compete at the Major, everyone must understand this feeling. Even if we win this tournament, I think we will still not be happy."

IEM Rio 2023Best of 3

OG

Matchpage

0

2

18th April 2023

Cloud9

14

Mirage

16

14

Overpass

16

OG	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Abdul 'degster' Gasanovdegster	49 - 35	+14	82.3	75.0%	1.25
Adam 'NEOFRAG' ZouharNEOFRAG	48 - 41	+7	85.2	73.3%	1.19
Maciej 'F1KU' MiklasF1KU	45 - 37	+8	76.3	80.0%	1.15
Shahar 'flameZ' ShushanflameZ	30 - 41	-11	64.5	66.7%	0.89
Nikolaj 'niko' Kristensenniko	30 - 42	-12	58.8	70.0%	0.85

Cloud9	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Dmitry 'sh1ro' Sokolovsh1ro	56 - 37	+19	96.0	73.3%	1.35
Vladislav 'nafany' Gorshkovnafany	33 - 39	-6	65.0	68.3%	0.95
Timur 'buster' Tulepovbuster	33 - 36	-3	66.1	61.7%	0.93
Sergey 'Ax1Le' RykhtorovAx1Le	38 - 46	-8	65.4	61.7%	0.87
Abay 'HObbit' KhassenovHObbit	34 - 45	-11	65.1	53.3%	0.84