FURIA qualify for Cologne groups, HEROIC out

The Brazilians squeezed through the first stage after a nail-biting three-mapper against HEROIC.

FURIA are the next team through to the IEM Cologne group stage after a hard-earned victory over HEROIC in the lower bracket of the play-in.

Damjan "⁠kyxsan⁠" Stoilkovski's team has been eliminated from the tournament after a difficult campaign, in which they were first forced to play with Volodymyr "⁠Woro2k⁠" Veletniuk and got off with a loss to MIBR. The Russian AWPer resolved his visa issues to fly in in time to help the team get past 3DMAX, but the team went on to miss out on the groups by just two rounds in the FURIA affair.

The newest addition to the Brazilian side, Felipe "⁠skullz⁠" Medeiros, put in crucial performances in his team's narrow win.

On Mirage, the former Liquid anchor topped the board with a 1.41-rated performance as FURIA just barely squeezed by their opponents in regulation, and combined with Kaike "⁠KSCERATO⁠" Cerato in a final-round 2v5 clutch that pushed his team over the line.

Clip: skullz & KSCERATO turn a 2v5 to win Mirage

A curious choice to pick Anubis, which was FURIA's permaban not too long ago, ended up backfiring on the Brazilians.

"Anubis sucks, I don't know why we play this map (laughs)," Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo joked after the match. "You gotta do what you gotta do. We have been working on the map and we played a good map on Anubis yesterday, and you gotta try it, we thought HEROIC were not playing it super well according to their results."

FURIA got it done on Nuke nonetheless in another nail-biting affair. Their lacking Terrorist side was saved by skullz, who prevented a second-round disaster early in the map and found crucial kills in a couple of more rounds as it progressed to keep the Brazilian side in it.

A back-and-forth start to the second half came to an end when FURIA punished HEROIC with just pistols in hand as KSCERATO waited out the clock against a kyxsan 1v3 attempt, and from there took control of the game. They fumbled their first chance to close the match at 12-10, when Rasmus "⁠sjuush⁠" Beck stopped the defuser with just 1 HP in a 1v4, but skullz stepped up with a triple in the final round to salvage FURIA at the final hour one more time.

Clip: sjuush stops the defuse on 1 HP in a 1v4