Complexity send Cloud9 packing

The North Americans will face Monte for a playoff spot later today.

Complexity have defeated Cloud9 2-1 with wins on Anubis (13-9) and Inferno (13-3), either side of a loss on Ancient (6-13). They will play a second series today at 10:30 against Monte as they look to book a spot in the Aware Super Theatre.

Date	Matches
IEM Sydney 2023
18/10/2023	Monte 10:45 Complexity	Match

For Cloud9, the loss is another blow to a roster that has not met expectations since the blockbuster signings of Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov and Ilya "⁠Perfecto⁠" Zalutskiy in the summer.

They switched to Abay "⁠HObbit⁠" Khassenov as in-game leader after Pro League, and the early signs were promising as Cloud9 won the BLAST Fall Showdown online. But, on LAN in Sydney, they have been eliminated in the group stage once again after losses to fnatic and now Complexity.

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That usual stars Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov and Sergey "⁠Ax1Le⁠" Rykhtorov were the team's lowest performers at the event, with 0.96 and 0.78 ratings respectively, drums home the challenge Cloud9 are facing as they enter CS2.

Anubis was the Americans' pick like it was versus G2, but on this occasion Complexity got the result they needed from their home map with a comprehensive CT side shutdown of Cloud9. It proved to be the closest map of the series, with two drubbings to follow.

Next was Ancient, where Cloud9 seemed to have got themselves together as they stormed to a 12-1 lead. electroNic was a menace throughout, posting a 1.99 rating in the 13-6 victory.

Natus Vincere's old second star was the one bright light for Cloud9 down under, doing his part to validate the decision to free him from leadership duties by posting a 1.36 event rating.

But even electroNic was quiet on Inferno as Cloud9 shrunk into their shells once again. Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski was combative in Middle as Complexity took their turn to run into an early 7-2 lead on their CT side.

That was enough to make Cloud9 desperate, who chose to force buy at 2-7 down despite having $2900 per player in an effort to limit the damage of their T half. It did not work out, and they chose to force buy once again at 2-8 down with $3400-$3700 per player, all too aware of how close Complexity were to victory in CS2's new MR12 format.

Though the second force buy did result in a win for Cloud9, they could still only end the half 3-9 down. The second pistol going Complexity's way hammered the nail in Cloud9's coffin, and they could not muster even a cosmetic comeback as they folded and lost the map 13-3 and series 2-1.

"We're getting used to CS2, learning with everyone else," Michael "⁠Grim⁠" Wince said post-game. He was then asked about the prospect of a second BO3 today, saying that "on days like this there's no time for relax. We'll eat, decompress, review mistakes from this game, and then start preparing for the next opponent."

Complexity have three hours to do so before their showdown against Monte for the last playoff spot. They were in a similar boat at February's IEM Katowice , where they lost their second BO3 of the day to Outsiders, but this time the new EliGE-powered Complexity go into the series as favorites.