FaZe through to Thunderpick final over Cloud9

The European combine recovered from a loss on their map pick to win the series in three maps.

FaZe have defeated Cloud9 in the Thunderpick World Championship semi-final with a 2-1 scoreline (Overpass 7-13, Anubis 13-8, Ancient 13-8).

The European combine, who won the first CS2 Big Event in Sydney, now await their grand final opponents. They will face off against either Monte or Virtus.pro on Sunday at 19:30 , with the winner taking home the trophy and the grand prize of $250,000.

Date	Matches
Thunderpick World Championship 2023
05/11/2023	FaZe 19:30 Virtus.pro	Match

Conversely, Cloud9 exit the tournament after debuting with Kirill "⁠Boombl4⁠" Mikhailov. The 24-year-old has filled the primary AWP role and put up a respectable 1.13 rating across the event.

The series started on FaZe's pick of Overpass, and the Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen-led team looked strong on the offense. They quickly negated Cloud9's pistol win and kept close to the Russian squad before ending the half up 7-5. Helvijs "⁠broky⁠" Saukants was unstoppable on the T side and put up 17 kills, nine more than his closest follower, karrigan.

broky cooled off as the sides switched, and none of his teammates replaced his fragging, which meant FaZe ended Overpass with a whimper. Eight straight round wins for Cloud9 gave the Russian squad a 13-7 victory, with FaZe visibly struggling throughout their CT side.

Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov led Cloud9's hot start on Anubis as he racked up 13 kills in the first four rounds, but that was as good as it got for the Russian squad. FaZe got back into the game with the help of karrigan's entry work to win out the first half 7-5 before further extending their lead with a second-half pistol victory.

The rest of the map was an economic battle, with both teams' money on the verge of breaking for the entirety of the second half. FaZe did enough to edge out a 13-8 victory in the end, though, as they secured a force-buy win to move the series to a decider.

FaZe started Ancient with a curious economic decision after losing the pistol. karrigan and company went for a full eco in the second round and a half-buy that featured five MP9s in the third, a decision that did not pay off. A half-buy victory at 1-5 down was the turning point that allowed FaZe back into the game, and they eventually tied up the score at 6-6.

Cloud9's fifth pistol-round victory of the series seemed to have given the Russian squad a leg up at the start of the second half, but FaZe answered straight back with a force-buy and never let up after that. The European combine went on to win all but one round in the remainder of the map to secure a 13-8 victory and book their spot in the Thunderpick World Championship grand final.