Grayhound and TYLOO proceed to Asia Minor upper bracket final

Grayhound beat MVP PK in a two map series on Mirage (16-10) and Dust2 (16-4), clinching a spot in the upper bracket final, while TYLOO beat AVANT on Overpass (16-2) and Mirage (16-12).

Grayhound and TYLOO showed they were the two strongest teams at the Minor by topping groups A and B, respectively. To win the groups, Grayhound beat Energy and AVANT in the opener and winners’ match—without dropping a map—, while TYLOO beat FFAmix in their opener and defeated Alpha Red in a three-map winners’ match.

Facing Grayhound in the first semi-final was a struggling MVP PK, who had lost their opener to Alpha Red. The match kicked off on Mirage, the Korean team’s pick, with Grayhound taking the pistol round. A heroic 1vs3 clutch by Hyun-Pyo "⁠XigN⁠" Lee on a B afterplant in the forcebuy tied it up, but the Australian side struck right back and swung the economy in their favor, going on to win five rounds in a row for a 6-1 lead. Grayhound then proved to be superior on the CT side, giving up only three more rounds and taking a 10-4 lead before another 1vs3 afterplant clutch, this time on A by Seon-Ho "⁠xeta⁠" Son with the AWP, closed the half out 10-5 in favor of the Australian side.

The second half kicked off with MVP PK winning their CT pistol round, as well as the first gun round, to try and mount a comeback, but once Grayhound found their footing they were able to win five rounds in a row, three against fullbuys and two against forcebuys, to get on match point. The Koreans then tried to make a last ditch effort, winning one more round, but a triple by Ollie "⁠DickStacy⁠" Tierney in Mid sealed the deal.

Dust2 was a much more straightforward map for Grayhound, who started out winning the pistol round on defense and were able to follow it up against a forcebuy thanks to a 1vs2 clutch by Liam "⁠malta⁠" Schembri on Long. The Australian team then took control of proceedings with a 7-1 lead in a round which saw Christopher "⁠dexter⁠" Nong gun down four attacking players in a B defense with an SG553. It wasn’t until the following round that MVP PK were able to get back on the board, the second and last time they would win a round in the half, as dexter once again mowed down four players on B with an SG553 to make it 13-2.

After switching sides, MVP PK once again won the pistol round on the CT side, and followed it up with one more, but that would be it as Grayhound went on the following two rounds to take the map and match and move on to the upper bracket final.

TYLOO’s rival in the first round of the playoffs at the Asia Minor was AVANT, who made their way out of groups after defeating 5POWER twice in the group stage. TYLOO kicked off the series by winning the first pistol round as YuanZhang "⁠Attacker⁠" Sheng managed to win a 1vs2 afterplant situation on A and defused the bomb. After winning against a forcebuy and an eco, YuLun "⁠Summer⁠" Cai got three quick kills on an A push to keep TYLOO in the lead. AVANT then got completely overwhelmed as they were only able to win one round, going down 1-14 at the half.

AVANT then won the second pistol round, but that would be it for the Australian side as three entry kills by HaoWen "⁠somebody⁠" Xu with the hero AK on the B site got TYLOO on match point. The Chinese team then won Overpass against upgraded pistols, taking the 1-0 lead in the series.

After having shown such a dominant performance on AVANT’s map pick, TYLOO kicked Mirage off winning the pistol on the attacking side, and then won four more rounds in a row in what looked like it could become another whitewash, but it was finally in the sixth round that AVANT were able to get on the board, as every player took down a rival. The Australians were then able to turn it around to win the half, 8-7.

AVANT then won the second pistol round on the attacking side, as well as the anti-ecos, to go up 11-7. With guns in their hands, TYLOO were able to bring it back to 10-11, but doubles by Euan "⁠sterling⁠" Moore and Mike "⁠ap0c⁠" Aliferis kept AVANT in the lead. An opening frag by Hansel "⁠BnTeT⁠" Ferdinand and a double by somebody against a B rush then set TYLOO up to grab hold of the second half and go on to close the map, 16-12.