M80 eliminate Rooster to set up Rebels match for group stage

1-2-2024 19:08

dephh showed a much better face to help keep M80's tournament hopes alive.

dephh proved a worthy stand-in as M80 cast Rooster out of Katowice

M80 have sent Rooster packing from the IEM Katowice Play-in following a dominant 2-0 victory, crushing the Australian team on Inferno (13-3) and Vertigo (13-7).

The North American team arrived in Poland with the news that their in-game leader, Marcus "⁠maNkz⁠" Kjeldsen, would be taking a break and not attend Katowice and the Americas RMR. Head coach Rory "⁠dephh⁠" Jackson was required to step in to fill the gap, and a disastrous first half against GamerLegion from him individually and M80 as a whole meant the team couldn't convert their opening match.

However, a far superior showing from the Brit in this series means M80 have earned a shot at qualifying for the IEM Katowice group stage, with a single best-of-three against Rebels separating them from advancement or elimination.

Date	Matches
IEM Katowice 2024 Play-in
02/02/2024	Rebels 19:35 M80	Match

dephh's improved level was evident from the start of the series as he and Fritz "⁠slaxz-⁠" Dietrich led the way to a commanding 10-2 lead on Rooster's Inferno pick. The 32-year-old revealed in a post-match interview that he spent a few hours deathmatching the previous night, and he ended the CT side atop the board with a 1.92 rating and 124.7 ADR.

M80 reigned supreme to close out the Australian team's pick 13-3, and kept that momentum up going into Vertigo. dephh's men held an unbeaten 18-0 record in the last three months on the map coming into the series, albeit against North American competition, and extended that streak to 19 courtesy of Mario "⁠malbsMd⁠" Samayoa and slaxz-. Again, Rooster had no chance to contest and looked deflated on their defense, a level which they will hope to improve upon after an upcoming week-long bootcamp in Europe.

IEM Katowice 2024 Play-inBest of 3

M80

Matchpage

1st February 2024

Rooster

Inferno

Vertigo

M80	K - D	Swing	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Fritz 'slaxz-' Dietrich slaxz-	41 - 17	+6.24%	92.5	83.3%	1.72
Mario 'malbsMd' Samayoa malbsMd	35 - 24	+5.91%	101.8	80.6%	1.58
Ethan 'reck' Serrano reck	22 - 20	+3.72%	69.7	86.1%	1.16
Rory 'dephh' Jackson dephh	24 - 25	-0.05%	75.7	77.8%	1.14
Michael 'Swisher' Schmid Swisher	19 - 19	+1.48%	61.3	83.3%	1.10

Rooster	K - D	Swing	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Corey 'nettik' Browne nettik	29 - 29	-1.27%	80.8	58.3%	0.96
Tyson 'asap' Paterson asap	21 - 29	-2.64%	75.9	75.0%	0.94
Tynan 'TjP' Purtell TjP	21 - 29	-4.61%	61.7	61.1%	0.85
Carlos 'Rackem' Jefferys Rackem	18 - 28	-2.97%	55.3	69.4%	0.76
Michael 'chelleos' Hawkins chelleos	15 - 28	-6.20%	42.8	61.1%	0.61

chelleos on LAN cheater

2024-02-01 19:08

biggest waste of time, why even bother with these Aussies.

6 replies

Could say the same for every single US team except coL. They are entitled to the opportunity to represent their part of the world.

2024-02-01 19:22

5 replies

Exactly, the aussies deserve to be here same as any other team They won their qualifier fair and square

2024-02-01 19:31

4 replies

There are no qualifiers* for Katowice, they were invited based on their ranking. *The exception being the Polish qualifier, and a handful of events like Cologne and EPL.

2024-02-01 20:06

3 replies

There was no Polish qualifier Rebels (formerly known as PALOMA) won ESL Polish Championships against 9INE (pre-ENCE transfer) which then ensued into a big ass drama in Poland known as PALOMA Gate which was mainly focusing on olimp matchfixing and cheating now and in 2018

2024-02-01 20:40

2 replies

The event functions as a qualifier for Katowice, but I understand my wording was poor, since I didn't include it with the other events. In the future, even with the end of ESL's national events, I believe the plan is to continue holding a Polish qualifier, which gives it a special status in my eyes.

2024-02-01 21:04

1 reply

Still if we consider circumstances of this event its a disaster that the slot for Katowice 2024 the 10th anniversary of the last iteration of Golden5 which was known back then as Virtus.Pro that was available for the Polish teams was in pool of an online event especially since we can't be sure if olimp is a cheater or not. sNx was being suspected of cheating but from what I saw from the evidence provided by sNx himself (on SZPERO's stream) he's clean. But olimp, well even if no software used matchfixing is also a form of cheating

2024-02-01 21:13

EZ for Fritz 'slaxz-' Dietrich

2024-02-01 19:14

Damn they lost to Dephh

2024-02-01 19:21

cant get any worse than that

German domination

2024-02-01 19:25

a manager.. IT'S A MANAGYERRR MAN

2024-02-01 19:33

Nice draw XD

ez for drip coach

2024-02-01 20:31

nt Rooster keep grinding

2024-02-01 21:25

congrats on this matchp. Nice to see some fresh blood on Katowice

2024-02-01 23:08

Hilarious to see how angry NA supporters are, 3/5 of their players basically went 1:1 in kills against part time McDonald’s workers. Rooster had zero prac, no prep and took 10 rounds off NAs “finest”. Funny seeing the M80 players talk shit mid game too, they should’ve won 26-0 considering the prep and experience of both sides.

2024-02-02 00:28