MOUZ lock in Cologne playoff berth

The German organization will make its second LANXESS Arena appearance.

Kamil "⁠siuhy⁠" Szkaradek and company have earned their organization an appearance in front of its home crowd following a 2-0 victory over Complexity in the Group B upper bracket semi-final.

The group stage aficionados have yet to lift a trophy in front of a large arena audience, but are among the favorites in the playoffs and will have a chance to dispel that narrative in the LANXESS. Complexity, meanwhile, find themselves cast down to the lower bracket and have a match against a red-hot Liquid ahead to avoid early elimination.

Date	Matches
IEM Cologne 2024
13/08/2024	Liquid 13:30 Complexity	Match

The American team has had a rough time matching up against MOUZ and came into the series with a 4-10 map record and a five-series loss streak, and that record has been made worse following MOUZ's wins on Vertigo (13-9) and Nuke (13-11).

Holes in Complexity's game continued to show in the series, particularly in their overreliance on fragging from Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski and repeated squandered advantages.

Clip: MOUZ recover crucial round on Nuke after COL don't cover Decon

The 27-year-old started the series on fire by punishing Ludvig "⁠Brollan⁠" Brolin at A Ramp, posting a 7-1 K-D to grant Complexity a 5-0 lead.

Once that stopped working, however, Complexity fell completely flat: Ádám "⁠torzsi⁠" Torzsás' AWP and multi-kills from siuhy and Jimi "⁠Jimpphat⁠" Salo powered the European combine to an 11-round streak, and Complexity's best efforts to recover in the second half came too little, too late. EliGE went on a 4-14 run after his hot start, with Johnny "⁠JT⁠" Theodosiou and Ricky "⁠floppy⁠" Kemery unable to make the difference.

The latter rifler did well to deny Ramp attacks at the start of Nuke to grant Complexity a 6-2 lead, but an Upper rush from MOUZ stemmed the bleed for an even score at the break. Dorian "⁠xertioN⁠" Berman then punished a sloppy anti-eco to rob an early round in the second half, but Complexity repeatedly exploited Door to gain the lead.

Back-to-back sloppy late rounds stopped them from converting that into a victory, however, with MOUZ instead converting, 13-11, to maintain their unbeaten record over JT's side on the map and lock in an arena berth.