FaZe and G2 find final Playoffs spots at IEM Chengdu 2024

Counter-Strike

April 10, 2024

Daniel Morris

The IEM Chengdu 2024 Group Stage has now come to a close, with six teams now set up for the Playoffs. We’ve got four Quarter-Finalists, as well as the two Semi-Finalists, with the final slots being decided today. Let’s take a look at what happened on the final day of the IEM Chengdu 2024 Group Stage!

G2 and FaZe secure final two Playoffs spots

Credit: Enos Ku | © ESL

Going into today, just two final Playoff spots were available. Now, we have our teams. FaZe and G2 completed Lower Bracket runs to ensure they’ll be on the big stage at IEM Chengdu 2024, with both teams having a very different day on the server.

For FaZe, the day was a real marathon. An early match against Cloud9 saw FaZe run out 2:0 winners, with an 11:13 Nuke the closest the series ever got to being competitive. Later in the day, FlyQuest were the final obstacle, but again, there was just too much quality on the FaZe side to ever make this a real contest. For FaZe, frozen was the star of the day, the top fragging in both series.

G2 had just one match today, a thriller against Heroic. 2:0 was the eventual score, but it wasn’t exactly simple for G2. The first map of Ancient was a 13:10 scoreline, with swing rounds that could have gone either way. Nuke went to Overtime, too, after G2 threw a 12:7 lead to let Heroic back into the match. Luckily, all of G2 were online throughout Nuke, allowing the likes of NiKo and huNter- to give m0NESY a bit more support here.

Astralis and MOUZ claim Semi-Final berths

We have our first two Semi-Finalists at IEM Chengdu 2024 – Astralis and MOUZ. These teams came into the tournament in very different situations, but now find themselves with a top-four finish already secured in China.

Astralis faced Virtus.pro, notoriously one of the most frustrating teams to play in Counter-Strike. But like Steel Helmet and FaZe before them, VP managed to get no more than seven rounds per map against a revitalized Astralis. Once again, jabbi and stavn topped the leaderboard in this series, showing promising signs for dev1ce’s IGL era. The real test will begin once they start getting anti-stratted, but we’re not quite there yet.

MOUZ’s win was just as impressive, stunning Liquid in a quick 2:0 series. Jimpphat and xertioN were both in excellent form for MOUZ, and were a key reason this match-up looked so simple. For Liquid, YEKINDAR really struggled to get into the game, and he’s got a day’s break now to rest and get back in form. MOUZ will now face the winner of Virtus.pro vs G2, in what should be a banger match, regardless of who they take on.