ENCE romance continues as they earn Spodek spot over G2

ENCE will become the first Polish-majority team to walk into IEM Katowice's playoffs since Virtus.pro in 2016.

Astralis, Vitality, and now G2: ENCE have upset the odds time and time again in Katowice and will now be rewarded with a spot in front of their home crowd in Spodek.

Their latest upset came in a convincing 2-0 win (Mirage 13-8, Anubis 13-7) in which Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander and company even managed to shutdown the imperious Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov as G2's individuals went absent.

ENCE will now face MOUZ for a semi-final spot in the group's winners match, while G2 drop down to the elimination matches against the dangerous Monte.

Date	Matches
IEM Katowice 2024
06/02/2024	Monte 13:30 G2	Match
06/02/2024	MOUZ 19:30 ENCE	Match

"We know we can play well, we know we can play bad. We've seen both versions of ENCE," Olek "⁠hades⁠" Miskiewicz told James "⁠BanKs⁠" Banks after the match and it was clear which side of the ENCE coin turned up to the server today.

The win even came after a surprise in the veto, where G2 utilized their seven-map pool to ban usual ENCE pick Vertigo, but ENCE stood tall even away from the map 9INE were so reliant on in 2023.

For G2 the loss is another mark against the inconsistent international side, with continued question marks around the performance of Nemanja "⁠huNter-⁠" Kovač — who has a 0.95 rating on LAN in CS2 — in particular. Cousin Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač, too, struggled individually and both finished the series with a lower rating than Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen.

Mirage was ENCE's pick in place of Vertigo, but the squad still showed a strong level of preparation with a clear anti-strat taking place in the second half pistol. gla1ve's pre-nade up Middle took 150 damage, with Paweł "⁠dycha⁠" Dycha picking up a triple to confirm the pistol round as the IGL and Jakub "⁠kuben⁠" Gurczyński exchanged knowing glances.

ENCE's dominance came in spite of losing a 5vs2 situation to HooXi and Nemanja "⁠nexa⁠" Isaković midway through the first half, a round that could have awoken the sleeping G2 dragon but instead sharpened ENCE's senses.

G2 looked to have gathered themselves as we switched to Anubis, but were instantly dealt a blow in an anti-force buy loss on round two. They rallied for six CT rounds, a decent tally on Anubis, but once the halves flipped ENCE re-established their dominance with aplomb.

The Polish-majority side did garner three out of four pistols (with the economic advantage in all four halves) but their supremacy was just as clear in gun rounds, as G2 mustered just one round on their T half of Anubis to hand ENCE a 2-0 victory and fulfilling their dream of walking out into the home Spodek arena.