Virtus.pro qualify for IEM Chengdu playoffs over FlyQuest

Cloud9 breezed past Wildcard to eliminate the North American squad in the B stream game.

The second day of IEM Chengdu got underway with Virtus.pro and Cloud9 winning their respective games against FlyQuest and Wildcard. Dzhami "⁠Jame⁠" Ali and company have thus secured the third playoff spot at the Chinese event, while Cloud9 kept their tournament hopes alive at the expense of Wildcard.

Virtus.pro are set to face off against the winner of Astralis vs. FaZe for a semi-final spot on Wednesday, while FlyQuest and Cloud9 will aim to secure a playoff spot by winning two matches in the lower bracket.

Date	Matches
IEM Chengdu 2024
10/04/2024	Cloud9 07:30 FaZe	Match
10/04/2024	FlyQuest 07:30 Nemiga	Match
10/04/2024	Virtus.pro 10:30 Astralis	Match

"We lost crucial rounds, but that's just CS. We made stupid mistakes and lost Vertigo, it's always hard to play against dexter's teams. We expected them to be good because they won against C9," Jame said about struggling on the first two maps.

Virtus.pro picked Inferno in the series and seemed to have begun on a dominant crusade on their map pick with a 6-0 lead. That was far from what happened, though, as Alistair "⁠aliStair⁠" Johnston's aggressive AWPing got FlyQuest back into the game and two rounds away from their opponents.

The Aussies won out the force-buy wars, which meant they soon reached two map points, but couldn't convert either of them as Virtus.pro secured overtime, where the Russian squad prevailed in a 16-14 win.

Vertigo began against expectations as FlyQuest demolished Jame and company with an 11-1 first half, as the Aussie squad shut down everything Virtus.pro had to offer. With FlyQuest's win seemingly only a matter of time, Virtus.pro began their comeback.

Clutches by Evgenii "⁠FL1T⁠" Lebedev and David "⁠n0rb3r7⁠" Danielyan, alongside some uncharacteristic smoke pushes by Jame, got them up to 11-11, but Virtus.pro ran out of steam in the dying stages to drop the map 11-13 after a spirited comeback attempt.

The decider proved to be the most one-sided map of the series. Virtus.pro's second-round force set them up for an 8-4 T half, and Petr "⁠fame⁠" Bolyshev's quad kill in the pistol ensured their victory. While they had some trouble closing it out, they did enough to secure a 13-7 win and a playoff spot at IEM Chengdu.

Wildcard had little to write home about in their elimination match versus Cloud9, as the Russian side dominated the North Americans throughout the series.

Kicking off on Wildcard's pick of Mirage, Peter "⁠stanislaw⁠" Jarguz's men struggled to find their footing throughout most of their T side, as Abay "⁠HObbit⁠" Khassenov posted an impressive 2.06 rating on the defense. Accruing just a single round in the first half, Wildcard were quickly finished off by Cloud9 13-1 in the second half.

Wildcard looked lively for the first time this event on their opponent's pick of Overpass, responding to the Russian's early four-round streak with one of their own to tie things up early.

The hopes raised early into the first half proved to be fleeting, as Cloud9 stormed ahead through the remainder of the match, dropping just one more round to lock down their pick 13-5, ending the series in quick 2-0 fashion.