Aurora pulverize NRG out of Dallas

21-5-2025 01:11

The Turks bounced back from their opening defeat to HEROIC with aplomb.

Aurora have eliminated the sole American-majority team from IEM Dallas in disheartening fashion, allowing NRG just eight rounds combined across Inferno and Nuke to stay alive in Group B's lower bracket.

Engin "⁠MAJ3R⁠" Küpeli's side suffered a defeat in their opening match to HEROIC, a game played mere hours after the Turkish team got off the plane from Astana, but a proper night's sleep did them well coming into day two. They still require two victories to reach the playoffs, with Liquid standing as their next challenger.

Date	Matches
IEM Dallas 2025
21/05/2025	Liquid 17:30 Aurora	Match

Ismailcan "⁠XANTARES⁠" Dörtkardeş and Ali "⁠Wicadia⁠" Haydar Yalçın ran rampant on Inferno, repeatedly shutting down NRG's executes for a 7-0 start before the Americans switched to a more contact-focused approach.

That change was enough for NRG to tally three at the break, but any possible dream of a comeback was shut down after Wicadia pulled back a 2v5 in the pistol with an incredible quad kill.

NRG fared little better on Nuke, their pistol victory immediately soured by Aurora's force-buy.

The Turks ran with that momentum to drum up a 9-1 lead, led by multi-fragging efforts from Wicadia, Samet "⁠jottAAA⁠" Köklü, and a back-breaking 1v3 clutch by MAJ3R, and NRG had no room to recover once the sides swapped again.

IEM Dallas 2025Best of 3

NRG

Matchpage

20th May 2025

Aurora

Inferno

Nuke

NRG	K - D	Swing	ADR	KAST	Rating2.1
Alexander 'br0' Bro br0	22 - 30	-2.82%	72.3	58.8%	0.87
Jeorge 'Jeorge' Endicott Jeorge	18 - 28	-4.42%	67.4	64.7%	0.76
Nick 'nitr0' Cannella nitr0	20 - 25	-2.04%	60.2	67.6%	0.75
Josh 'oSee' Ohm oSee	17 - 27	-3.18%	64.3	61.8%	0.65
Jadan 'HexT' Postma HexT	9 - 28	-6.50%	42.4	55.9%	0.40

Aurora	K - D	Swing	ADR	KAST	Rating2.1
Ali 'Wicadia' Haydar Yalçın Wicadia	38 - 22	+6.26%	120.7	79.4%	1.66
Ismailcan 'XANTARES' Dörtkardeş XANTARES	30 - 15	+5.29%	86.7	79.4%	1.55
Samet 'jottAAA' Köklü jottAAA	27 - 19	+3.62%	88.5	88.2%	1.38
Engin 'MAJ3R' Küpeli MAJ3R	19 - 15	+3.10%	71.7	88.2%	1.28
Özgür 'woxic' Eker woxic	23 - 18	+0.70%	70.5	67.6%	1.08

awe, bye bye nitr0. was fun to see you in dallas, at least for a bit!!

2025-05-21 01:12

hext is about to get kicked next sorry for bad rhyme pun

2025-05-21 01:14

1 reply

This is MF DOOM

2025-05-21 12:12

taz > hext

2025-05-21 01:15

Hext is garbage and should go to college

NRG playing like the maple leafs in front of their crowd very sad

2025-05-21 01:20

they have recovered from jetlag. aurora are one of the favourites to win IEM Dallas after all. if they werent jetlagged the first match they would have easily won

2025-05-21 01:28

NRG are just happy to be there The most they can amount to is basically being jeorge's academy team before he eventually ends up in COL or Liquid. Or br0's training arc before he ends up in astralis or heroic in 2026 or 2027 NRG are just here to have some fun. They're there to collect their 16th place money or w/e it is. Essentially get a refund on their plane tickets. Do some Dallas sightseeing. Cute stuff like that.

2025-05-21 01:31

4 replies

Jeorge is a stud man. The only NA up and comer I've been excited about in a long time (not counting malbs). Hope he can keep building and get a shot in a bigger team

2025-05-21 02:17

3 replies

Agreed. Been following him since around when he joined EG Black I think he's promising, and can find his footing in top tier international play as part of a better team.

2025-05-21 03:49

lake? :D. he's cooled off a bit for sure, but when he first joined m80 and performed well in their debut tournament, it was awesome!

2025-05-21 06:29

Honestly Jeorge is the only one that passes the eye test for me in terms of being able to consistently play well at real lans. I like Lake, I like JBa, but I just don't really see them making the step up. Obviously they're inexperienced and have a lot of room to grow. I kind of have weird aesthetic preferences with players too that may make my eye test different from others. I've always preferred more smooth, controlled players, which I think suits Jeorge more than the others. Especially if they can still have that style while having a relatively high sens, which Jeorge has

2025-05-21 16:14

-hext +peeping. hext has played SO many tier 1 lans so far hes just not adjusting.

2025-05-21 01:42

2 replies

I haven't followed t2 NA very closely for a while now. Is he good enough to step up to a lan team like this?

2025-05-21 02:19

peeping has been solid, however, it may be a bit of a stretch. with that being said, doesn't hurt to try, especially after how good he's looked at other tournaments, and with hext just simply not improving. as a canadian, it's difficult to say this, but i think this was the dagger for him. single digits in a bo3 no matter who you're playing is unacceptable levels of gameplay.

2025-05-21 06:31