The biggest stories and plays from IEM Rio day three

20-4-2023 04:42

Get some insight at a glance into what went down on the final day of the group stage in Brazil.

Vitality send FaZe packing on the way to playoffs

Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire's squad got off to a poor start at IEM Rio when they fell to OG in an overtime match on Overpass on the opening day of the tournament, but they have now made it to the playoffs thanks to their impressive lower bracket run in Group B.

Their win against MIBR on day two was a formality before more difficult opposition awaited at the beginning of day three in FaZe, who had been sent to the elimination zone by FURIA on the previous day. Still looking rather sloppy and tired from their Major-qualifying campaign, FaZe's stars were no match to Lotan "⁠Spinx⁠" Giladi, who played perhaps his best match on record to date as Vitality sent the No. 2 team packing 19-16 on Anubis and 16-9 on Overpass.

Spinx was in the spotlight with a glorious performance against FaZe

Later in the day Vitality played OG for a spot in the playoffs and came out swinging in the rematch from the opening day. A crazy Mirage opener full of individual highlight plays went the way of the underdogs, before Vitality turned up with convincing wins on Inferno and Overpass.

In the meantime, HEROIC also finished off their run through the Group A lower bracket with a dominant victory against Ninjas in Pyjamas — 16-5 on Overpass and 16-9 on Inferno. Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard had been forced to sit out half of the previous match against The MongolZ, but he returned to the server in style on day three, with a 1.78-rated series performance against Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen's team.

IEM Rio playoff bracket set

NAVI, Cloud9 secure semi-final berths

Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev made short work of BIG in Natus Vincere's upper bracket final match to help his team secure a top-four finish at IEM Rio. The Ukrainian AWPer was the star of the show in the series, dominating the Mirage opener with a 38-26 K-D (in a 22-20 map win), and he maintained that level on Inferno to clinch his team the victory. NAVI can now take the following two days to relax and get some practice in as they await the winner of FURIA vs. HEROIC in the semi-final.

s1mple mustered a 1.42 series rating in NAVI's win over BIG

Cloud9 can also take two days off and use the time revisit and work on their Vertigo after beating FURIA 2-1 in Group B's upper bracket final. The Russian team showed tenacity by recovering from a deficit on FURIA's map pick of Inferno to clinch victory in overtime, but were blown out of the water by Rafael "⁠saffee⁠" Costa and company on Vertigo before taking the series over the line on Ancient to make it to the semi-final.

Date	Matches
IEM Rio 2023
19/04/2023	fnatic Finished 0:2 OG	Match
19/04/2023	Vitality Finished 2:0 FaZe	Match
19/04/2023	Ninjas in Pyjamas Finished 0:2 HEROIC	Match
19/04/2023	Natus Vincere Finished 2:0 BIG	Match
19/04/2023	OG Finished 1:2 Vitality	Match
19/04/2023	FURIA Finished 1:2 Cloud9	Match

IEM Rio: Day three as it happened

Player of the day

It is once again difficult to overlook Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut and his second map performance against OG (a 2.31-rated Inferno), but it is his teammate Spinx who takes the cake this time with arguably his career-best series overall.

The Israeli decimated FaZe in their elimination match in Group B earlier in the day. Spinx carried Vitality to a 19-16 victory on Anubis with 42 kills overall and two consecutive quad-kills to close the map, and 30-bombed on Overpass to clinch the series in comfortable fashion. Below are his outrageous stats from the best-of-three:

Score: 73-34
Rating: 1.91
KAST: 90%

ADR: 126.2
Impact: 2.15
Multikills: 22

Another honorable mention goes to jabbi, who returned from being sidelined with a masterful performance against Ninjas in Pyjamas, but simply couldn't outshine the immense showing from Vitality's 22-year-old rifler.