forZe, ECSTATIC on the brink of elimination in Malta; 1WIN, B8 join 1-1 pool

Denis "⁠deko⁠" Zhukov dropped 30 kills in 30 rounds in 1WIN’s victory over FORZE on the A stream while Arseniy "⁠cptkurtka023⁠" Derevinskiy powered B8 against ECSTATIC.

1WIN and B8 are now in the 1-1 pool after slipping in the first day of the IEM Road to Rio Europe RMR A, tallying victories over FORZE and ECSTATIC in the second round of the Swiss group. The match between the two Russian sides was a 30-round nail-biter in which deko made the difference for his team with 30 kills. Over on the B stream ECSTATIC put up a 13-round comeback against B8 on the CT side of Nuke, just to drop the ball in overtime to join FORZE in the tournament's 0-2 pool.

1WIN got off to a flying start on Nuke, hitting 5-0 on the attack before their FORZE compatriots could react. deko made the difference early on for his team with 10 frags in six rounds, but cooled down as FORZE settled into the defense and started to link back-to-back rounds all the way to a 7-5 lead. 1WIN only managed one more round in the half, keeping it within three before switching sides.

FORZE increased their lead to 11-6 after the two first rounds of the second half, but 1WIN struck back on the third round to stay within striking distance. Egor "⁠flamie⁠" Vasilyev and company got within one, 10-11, but FORZE won a forcebuy off the back of a Tec-9 triple by Aleksandr "⁠shalfey⁠" Marenov to stay ahead. It wouldn’t be enough to run away, however, as 1WIN kept putting up defenses and took the lead into round 30, converting on match point to come out victorious.

B8 went up 5-1 on the CT side of Nuke against ECSTATIC, with cptkurtka023 and Artem "⁠r1nkle⁠" Moroz leading the way early on for their team. From there on out they were the only team on the server, with the Danes hitting a wall round after round all the way to the very last one of the half. A triple by Benjamin "⁠brzer⁠" Jensen and a double by Tobias "⁠kraghen⁠" Kragh Jensen put a second on the board for the Danes before the half.

The Ukrainian squad won the second pistol round with a triple by cptkurtka023 and double by Denis "⁠amster⁠" Liashenko, which put B8 on match point from the get-go, but ECSTATIC had fight in them despite the one-sided margin and worked on carving back a comeback. The Danes did not let up and put up a wall which B8 ran into round after round after round, missing out on an incredible 13 match points.

B8 reset from the choke to win two gun rounds on the attacking side in overtime, something they had failed to do throughout the whole previous half, which proved enough to seal the deal after switching sides as they closed out the map 19-16 on the CT side.