FURIA defeat North 2-0; advance to ECS grand final

The Brazilian side FURIA took down North in the first semi-final of the day 2-0 (16-11 Inferno, 22-20 Overpass), securing a grand final spot.

The series started on Inferno, FURIA's map pick, with North getting two opening kills in the pistol. The Danes still let the round slip as they walked into a stacked A bombsite, where Kaike "⁠KSCERATO⁠" Cerato took down all five of their members. That set up FURIA for a good start, with a key round being the fifth one which KSCERATO and Yuri "⁠yuurih⁠" Santos recovered by quickly combining for all five kills.

FURIA was up 7-0 before North got on the board thanks to Jakob "⁠JUGi⁠" Hansen's double entry in mid. The Danes followed that up with two more, and then JUGi and Markus "⁠Kjaerbye⁠" Kjærbye combined to win a 2v5 on A. North's winning streak was held at five as yuurih and Rinaldo "⁠ableJ⁠" Moda Junior stopped their mid control attempt with a setup utilizing the Short roof.

After a respectable 10-5 first half, Andrei "⁠arT⁠" Piovezan and co. swapped to the offense, but North locked down their approach toward A and started the comeback. Valdemar "⁠valde⁠" Bjørn Vangså's team looked dominant early on, FURIA managed to break their defenses only once before the score was equalized at 11-11. However, that is where FURIA changed up the tempo and chained together a couple of rounds, breaking their opponents economy. (14-11) In the last stretch, North were only able to put together mixed-buys which were not enough to hold the Brazilians at bay, 16-11.

ableJ and arT bagged double kills each to earn FURIA the pistol round on Overpass, but North got on the board quickly, in the first rifle round. The Danes were mainly finding success on the B bombsite as they went up 5-2, but FURIA then employed some of their trademark aggression to disrupt their opponents before falling back into more passive setups to get back into the map.

Rounds started going FURIA's way after that, North only mustered one more thanks to Nicklas "⁠gade⁠" Gade's quad kill making the half-time score 9-6. Philip "⁠aizy⁠" Aistrup got his team back on track quickly, though, showing his individual skill with an all-headshot USP-S ace in the first round of the half.

North didn't build a lot of momentum, though, as FURIA started bullying the A defense with fast pushes from Long, going up to 13-9 swiftly. The streak was finally stopped as the Danes sent additional players towards A and they started chaining rounds, but they still dropped a 5v2 in which yuurih clutched the final 1v2. In the end, that round proved crucial to FURIA securing overtime on their opponents' map pick.

Two sets of added rounds were needed before the victor was found, as both teams held strong on the CT side. In the end, arT led his team by example and helped them secure a 22-20 victory on the second map, 2-0 for the series.