Astana jet-setters falter in Dallas openers

Fatigue from travel was evident in two error-laden series as FURIA and Aurora dropped to the lower bracket.

FURIA and Aurora arrived in Dallas mere hours before their opening matches, fresh off an overnight flight from Astana after playing each other in a third-place decider match on Sunday, but travel fatigue got the better of them in losses to The MongolZ and HEROIC, respectively.

The results set up an upper bracket battle for a spot in playoffs between HEROIC and Falcons — pitting Damjan "⁠kyxsan⁠" Stoilkovski and René "⁠TeSeS⁠" Madsen against their former organization — and another between The MongolZ and G2.

Aurora and FURIA, meanwhile, drop to the lower bracket of their respective groups and must now win three best-of-threes to reach bracket stage, with battles against NRG and Lynn Vision first in the cards.

Date	Matches
IEM Dallas 2025
20/05/2025	Falcons 22:30 HEROIC	Match
20/05/2025	NRG 23:15 Aurora	Match
21/05/2025	Lynn Vision 01:15 FURIA	Match
21/05/2025	G2 01:55 The MongolZ	Match

Ayush "⁠mzinho⁠" Batbold was FURIA's maker on Anubis, providing several openers and multi-kills that helped The MongolZ barely convert their 4-0 start into a 6-6 tie at halftime. FURIA did well to recover from a woeful map from Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis early doors, but were punished for their sloppy play in the second half and mustered just one round on the T side.

Multiple, miserable attempts to brute force smokes backfired, particularly against an immovable mzinho on A, with the 17-year-old putting up 24 frags (79% headshots), 124 ADR, and a 1.76-rated map to help his side storm to victory.

FURIA's performance continued dwindling on Mirage, where an all-around effort from The MongolZ resulted in another swift victory. Sodbayar "⁠Techno⁠" Munkhbold steered the ship at the start before Usukhbayar "⁠910⁠" Banzragch and Azbayar "⁠Senzu⁠" Munkhbold's late impact kept FURIA in the doldrums, with not a single player from the latter managing higher than a 0.81 rating.

Aurora started off on better footing than their travel partners, battling past HEROIC on Dust2 thanks in large part to a phenomenal individual effort from Özgür "⁠woxic⁠" Eker.

Ali "⁠Wicadia⁠" Haydar Yalçın also had a few key rounds, including a Five-SeveN quad kill that gave Aurora the edge at halftime, but woxic made all the difference with two pivotal 1v2 clutches and three multi-kills from man-disadvantaged situations to help his side cobble together a 13-9 victory.

HEROIC responded with aplomb on Anubis, recovering from a pistol loss with a flawless 11-round spree on the attack. Yasin "⁠xfl0ud⁠" Koç and Simon "⁠yxngstxr⁠" Boije were the hammer and anvil in that effort, which nearly went to waste in the second half as Ismailcan "⁠XANTARES⁠" Dörtkardeş woke up from a dismal start and nearly brought his team back into the fight, only to fall just short, 13-10.

XANTARES continued to perform as the series went to a Mirage decider, but the rest of Aurora had no gas left in the tank.

yxngstxr and Andrey "⁠tN1R⁠" Tatarinovich reigned supreme for HEROIC, the former posting eight multi-kills, 114.2 ADR, and pulling back a few disadvantages, with Aurora mustering a measly three rounds on either side before flying the white flag.