Complexity demolish Permitta to keep Katowice group stage dream alive

The North Americans eliminated the only Polish team from their home tournament in two maps.

Complexity stay alive in the IEM Katowice Play-In after a comfortable 2-0 over the Permitta underdogs, who made it to the event as ESL's national champions from Poland. The North Americans started the series on Nuke with a confident 16-8 win before closing out the series on Overpass 16-7, which they picked after Permitta banned Anubis in the first rotation.

Complexity bounced back after their opening defeat against BIG, where they almost came back from 4-14 down only to lose 12-16 to the German squad, condemning them to the lower bracket. After today's victory, Complexity are now on a collision course with ENCE for a spot in the IEM Katowice group stage, the match set to take place on Friday at 16:00 .

For Permitta, this was no doubt a positive learning experience despite the Polish team not reaching double digits in any of their losses. "It's a lot different than online officials, the lights, and the atmosphere. We just need to play more with this lineup, to practice a lot more on our general play," said Rafał "⁠sNx⁠" Snopek in the post-match interview after their exit from the tournament. One of the promising signs for them was Dawid "⁠Layner⁠" Falczyński's performance on the AWP despite his teams' shortcomings, putting up a positive K/D and a 1.04 rating.

Nuke began with a closely contested brawl between the two teams, Permitta winning the first gun round to force Complexity on an eco to reduce the deficit to 2-3. Permitta had a straightforward game plan which consisted of several fast plays but failed to post rounds despite getting six opening kills on their offense. Complexity kept on increasing their advantage and found themselves 9-3 up in no time before Håkon "⁠hallzerk⁠" Fjærli won consecutive clutches to secure his team a comfortable 12-3 half.

Once the Poles moved to the defensive side, they showed a much better face. They negated Complexity's pistol round win and put together a five rounds streak that reduced the deficit to 8-14, with their individuals finally squaring up to the North Americans. Permitta's lack of experience eventually showed, however, as their slow rotations to the lower site cost them in the retake with Complexity on map point. Complexity have hallzerk to thank for their comfortable victory, as the Norwegian AWPer finished the map with 23 kills that included two clutches.

Overpass was up next, a map Permitta are yet to record a victory in the last three months. Their lack of repetition on the map soon became obvious despite their strong start, as Complexity quickly tied up the scores at 4-4. Permitta kept up their pack mentality throughout their offense but struggled to handle the CT's aggression. Justin "⁠FaNg⁠" Coakley was especially disruptive to Permitta's gameplan, the 20-year-old finishing the first half with five successful entry duels that helped Complexity close out an 11-4 half.

Complexity won the second-half pistol that put them three rounds away from victory as they began their offense. Permitta did once again find a bit of life once switching over to the CT side and found three rounds in a row before Johnny "⁠JT⁠" Theodosiou provided his team with a crisp triple entry on B. That brought Permitta's economy to the brink, and Complexity made the most out of that as they closed out the map 16-7 to set themselves up for the deciding match against ENCE on Friday.