Monte eliminate hometown squad Grayhound

The Australians seemed to be cruising to victory on map two, only for Monte to switch up their tactical approach.

Monte have sent Grayhound packing from IEM Sydney with a 2-0 series win, taking down the Australians on Nuke (13-5) and Anubis (13-11).

Grayhound offered little resistance on their own map pick but seemed set to steal away Anubis, only for a smart tactical switch-up from Monte to turn the tide of the map.

This result means Grayhound have been eliminated from the competition, whilst Monte live to fight another day and will take on the loser of the series between ENCE and fnatic on Wednesday.

Date	Matches
IEM Sydney 2023
18/10/2023	Monte 04:30 fnatic	Match

Kicking things off on their own selection of Nuke, Grayhound were fairly woeful, finding Monte's assertive CT style difficult to handle. Some individual moments of brilliance from Joshua "⁠INS⁠" Potter gave them a glimmer of hope for the second half, but they capitulated on their defensive effort and granted Monte an easy 13-5 win.

Things were much more competitive on Anubis, and that was largely due to the AWPing prowess of Alistair "⁠aliStair⁠" Johnston. The Aussie sniper racked up 15 first half frags as he led Grayhound to a competitive 5-7 score line, although Monte still found plenty of success with their aggressive defensive approach, as emphasised by Szymon "⁠kRaSnaL⁠" Mrozek's pistol round highlight.

aliStair continued to impress in the second half and seemed set to guide Grayhound to a decider, but Monte had other plans. They switched up their approach, abandoning their default-heavy game plan in favour of fast-paced executes and it bore fruit, with Alexander "⁠br0⁠" Bro eventually clinching a narrow 13-11 victory for the team by virtue of a P90 ace.