sh1ro stars as Cloud9 oust Monte from IEM Cologne

31-7-2023 22:52

The Russian-majority team are now just one win away from qualifying for the Lanxess Arena.

sh1ro was unstoppable on Ancient and ended the series with a +30 K-D

Cloud9 beat Monte 2-0 in the lower bracket of Group A to keep their IEM Cologne run alive, securing a 16-14 victory on Anubis and then closing out the series on Ancient, 16-11.

The Russian team made one of the most exciting changes during the off-season, adding Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov and Ilya "⁠Perfecto⁠" Zalutskiy in place of Vladislav "⁠nafany⁠" Gorshkov and Timur "⁠buster⁠" Tulepov, but haven't been able to use their complete lineup in their debut event as Sergey "⁠Ax1Le⁠" Rykhtorov couldn't make it in time for the group stage due to visa issues.

Ax1Le to miss IEM Cologne group stage

There is a possibility that he could return in time for the playoffs, should Cloud9 manage to advance, and now they've put themselves one game away from making it through by defeating Monte in the lower bracket. They will take on the winner of GamerLegion vs. fnatic in the Group A lower final on Tuesday to determine which team will advance to the bracket stage of the German event.

Date	Matches
IEM Cologne 2023
01/08/2023	Cloud9 16:00 GamerLegion	Match

The whole Cloud9 roster performed well together in the series, but Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov deserves some immense credit as he repeatedly and single-handedly shut down Monte on multiple occasions and won some pivotal rounds to keep his team in control in turning point situations.

That was evident across the series, starting on Anubis. A hero defense of the A bombsite and a denial of a bomb plant in a different round both proved key in getting Cloud9 back into the map, which they only just edged out victory on 16-14.

Ancient was where he truly shined, however, with further multi-kill rounds, a triple Deagle round, and AWP defense of B all ensuring that Cloud9 were in the driver's seat of the map, with them eventually closing things out, 16-11.

IEM Cologne 2023Best of 3

Cloud9

Matchpage

31st July 2023

Monte

Anubis

Ancient

Cloud9	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Dmitry 'sh1ro' Sokolov sh1ro	55 - 25	+30	84.4	86.0%	1.45
Ilya 'Perfecto' Zalutskiy Perfecto	42 - 32	+10	86.7	78.9%	1.25
Denis 'electroNic' Sharipov electroNic	42 - 39	+3	79.5	75.4%	1.21
Abay 'HObbit' Khassenov HObbit	37 - 41	-4	80.2	73.7%	1.09
Timur 'buster' Tulepov buster	20 - 32	-12	41.2	68.4%	0.77

Monte	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Volodymyr 'Woro2k' Veletniuk Woro2k	40 - 40	0	76.5	73.7%	1.03
Viktor 'sdy' Orudzhev sdy	36 - 40	-4	71.7	80.7%	1.02
Alexander 'br0' Bro br0	35 - 39	-4	73.1	75.4%	0.99
Sergiy 'DemQQ' Demchenko DemQQ	31 - 37	-6	64.2	68.4%	0.96
Szymon 'kRaSnaL' Mrozek kRaSnaL	26 - 41	-15	49.1	64.9%	0.78

sh1ro top 1 awp ofc

2023-07-31 22:52

1 reply

2023-08-01 13:04

monte still stronk 4 sure, nt sdy

2023-07-31 23:15

GODsh1ro

2023-07-31 22:53

C9 TOP 1 SH1RO WORLD 1

2 replies

cringe

2023-08-01 06:56

nuh uh

2023-08-01 09:19

Get carried

2023-07-31 22:55

ALL ABOARD !!! This train aint stopping nowhere !!!

2023-07-31 22:59

GG monte, C9 just too strong

2023-07-31 23:00

BOROS was the only Monte world-class player who could stop that russian Cloud9 awper.

2023-07-31 23:03

4 replies

bullshit, they just choked

2023-07-31 23:04

3 replies

No one in Monte possesses cojones of BOROS's size. They had too much respect for C9's firepower, while BOROS just go +w and delete all the opponents from the map.

2023-07-31 23:07

Boros was dying in many unnecessary moments, which is very crucial for general teamplay. Br0 will fit much better to the current team. I feel like Krasnal consistency is the weakest point right now. Dude is performing in 1 map out of 5.

2023-08-01 07:56

Both statements are on point. I can only add that BOROS' impact was such high that it completely compensated his mistakes

2023-08-01 10:51

What a performance, this was beautiful to watch. Maybe best individual performance on the event. He was doing everything. Prime s1mple style impact.

GG to sh1ro and to C9. Having your K/D difference be larger than the amount of kills somebody has across two maps is pretty ridiculous... It's a shame MONTE kind of choked in that second map but it is what it is - The first map was the true match here. :) Great try by MONTE.

2023-07-31 23:11

GG's, impressed that C9 won with a stand-in

2023-07-31 23:17

Finally a foretaste of what new C9 will look like

2023-07-31 23:50

ez for ma boy

2023-07-31 23:51

my "your boy" do you mean Ax1Le who was absent?

2023-08-01 00:48

I'm a fanboy of sh1ro as well mens xD

2023-08-01 12:22

Impressive

sh1ro is baby faced serie killer

2023-07-31 23:52

Impressive even w/o Ax1Le

2023-08-01 02:52

Sad for Monte. lmbt's prematch interview was nice, seems like a good guy.

2023-08-01 04:55

C9 first major winner in cs2

2023-08-01 06:55

C9 always plays 4v6 rarely 5v5 with axile C9 top 1 SH1RO world 1

2023-08-01 08:50

C9 whit this new line up gonna be crazy i think we have a new cs era domination alongside Vitality-Heroic ofc

2023-08-01 08:54

C9 have got to have the easiest run to the playoffs, imagine beating 9INE, Monte and GamerLegion and that’s it

2023-08-01 09:16

heroic almost lost to this ;(

2023-08-01 10:26

easiest run without star player

2023-08-01 11:37

GamerLegion played major final with vitality

2023-08-01 12:28

and since then they lost their IGL and star player and replaced them with average players, they will be a good T2 team but they’re not as challenging as any T1 opposition

2023-08-01 12:52

sh1ro is great, there is something about him that I don't see in other awpers, it's like when he hardscopes and shoots, its a guaranteed kill, the guy is so accurate it's crazy. I guess his rather passive style helps him to stay calm in the situations.

2023-08-02 13:05