mantuu shines as BIG knock Cloud9 out of BLAST Groups

The Russian team fell flat in the consolidation final and will have to play the Showdown.

BIG live to fight another day in the BLAST Premier Spring Groups after beating Cloud9 by a 2-0 scoreline. The German side brushed off a sluggish start and were the better team for large spells of the series, punishing a generally off-color display from Cloud9, who had looked very strong in their opening match in Copenhagen against HEROIC but fizzled out to finish in a disappointing 9th-12th place in the tournament.

“It wasn’t Cloud9 today,” Kirill "⁠Boombl4⁠" Mikhailov admitted after the series.

BIG move on to Group D’s grand final, where they will have a rematch against Virtus.pro after the two teams faced other in the opening round.

Date	Matches
BLAST Premier Spring Groups 2024
27/01/2024	Virtus.pro 19:40 BIG	Match

A frantic start to the series saw Cloud9 jump out to an early lead on Ancient after a defuse through a smoke in the pistol round and a 1v2 clutch by Boombl4 in the following round. The Russian team rode that momentum to a 6-1 lead, forcing BIG coach Fatih "⁠gob b⁠" Dayik to call a timeout in an attempt to halt their momentum.

The pep talk paid off immediately as BIG got their second round on the board off the back of two entry kills from Johannes "⁠tabseN⁠" Wodarz with a Tec-9. The German side seemed to have renewed energy after the timeout as they won the remaining rounds of the half to equalize the score before the side switch.

Three Glock frags by Abay "⁠HObbit⁠" Khassenov put Cloud9 back in the lead before Ilya "⁠Perfecto⁠" Zalutskiy followed it up with a 1v4 clutch in the subsequent round. Cloud9 had a grip on the game, but it all fell apart after they lost an anti-eco. That round swung the momentum in BIG’s favor, with the German team going on a dominant 7-1 run, led by the spectacular efforts of Mateusz "⁠mantuu⁠" Wilczewski and Karim "⁠Krimbo⁠" Moussa.

The Polish AWPer carried his spectacular form into the second map, putting up 20 frags in a one-sided first half as BIG ran riot on the T side. They tore Cloud9’s defense apart time and time again, and they could have gone into the break on double digits if not for a last-gasp clutch by Perfecto.

Cloud9 showed some signs of life on the T side and began to chip away at the deficit. The second half quickly unraveled into a chaotic mess as neither team seemed capable of stamping their authority on proceedings, but then tabseN helped get BIG over the line with a decisive trio of frags on the B site.