SunPayus shines bright as ENCE advance to IEM Cologne grand final over Vitality

The team around Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer now have a best-of-five standing between them and the highly-coveted IEM Cologne trophy.

ENCE are through to the IEM Cologne grand final following a 2-1 victory over Vitality. The two teams traded 16-14 victories on Mirage and Nuke, but it was ENCE who delivered the goods on the Vertigo decider after waltzing to a commanding 16-7 victory to wrap the series up.

ENCE owe a large amount of their thanks to Álvaro "⁠SunPayus⁠" García. The Spaniard, who has been the target of praise for the way in which he comes alive on the stage, ended the series with a stellar 1.48 rating to his name, putting up 31 kills to keep Vitality honest on Nuke before keeping his foot on the gas on Vertigo with 24 frags and eight multi-kill rounds.

"The two first maps were neck-and-neck essentially. Small mistakes decided the outcome for both teams, but I think on Vertigo we were the better team," Snappi shared in a post-match interview on stage with Oliver "⁠OJ Borg⁠" D'Anastasi. "I am super proud because we have been working on it in secret... we struggled a little bit on the last [outings on the map]. I'm proud of the boys, everyone kept their cool. A happy captain," the Dane went on to reveal.

The Snappi-led roster now progress to the best-of-five IEM Cologne title decider, which kicks off on Sunday at 16:00 . The multinational squad will lock horns with the winner of the upcoming battle between Astralis and G2 for a chance to etch their names into the history books and take home the IEM Cologne trophy and the $400,000 first-place prize.

Vitality, by contrast, exit their first Big Event with Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan in 3-4th place. The Franco-Israeli team won't be too disheartened with their performance in Cologne, but will undoubtedly lament being sent packing before the title decider after being unable to convert their comfortable first-half advantages on Mirage and Nuke.

Date	Matches
IEM Cologne 2023
06/08/2023	ENCE 16:00 G2	Match

The first IEM Cologne semi-final began on Mirage, Vitality's pick, where the Bees started off on the right foot to nurture a 9-6 lead by the end of their CT-side. Things soon changed once play resumed, however, with ENCE slowly but surely whittling the deficit down and keeping Vitality's attempts to hop back in the driver's seat at bay to tie things up at 14-14. In the end, it required a typical ENCE rush of the A bombsite to get things decided, with Snappi even pulling a 1vs2 clutch out of his hat in round 30 to clinch the opening map in his team's favor.

Vitality turned up to play once Nuke got started, a complete team effort leaving ENCE stumped on the T-side. Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut's perpetually brilliant form coupled with flameZ's clinical holds of the upper bombsite left ENCE's attacks in tatters and enabled the Franco-Israeli hybrid to sport a commanding 11-4 lead at the side swap.

Much like Mirage, however, Vitality's advantage was eroded away, with SunPayus taking it upon himself to spearhead ENCE's comeback attempt. The Spaniard put 31 kills on the board by the end of the map, but even that wasn't enough to prevent Vitality from closing things out in the nick of time, 16-14, to send the series to a Vertigo decider.

Alas, ENCE went on a tear on Vertigo despite the hard-fought nature of the series in the opening two maps. SunPayus, brimming with confidence from his 31-kill performance on Nuke, took fights and opened bombsites left and right to spearhead a 10-5 scoreline for his side at the swap. From there, it was Pavle "⁠Maden⁠" Bošković's turn to leave a mark, with the Montenegrin Monster, as he was named by Alex "⁠Machine⁠" Richardson, joining his Spanish teammate atop the scoreboard with 24 kills to earn ENCE a 16-7 victory and a spot in the IEM Cologne title decider.