The first truly premier CS:GO tournament of 2020 (sorry, DreamHack Open) presented no surprises as all the favorites at IEM Katowice did what was expected of them.
IEM Katowice is keeping it straight so far
Last year’s champions Astralis started their defending campaign with a confident 2-0 victory against Cloud9. It was the Danes’ first time playing Train after the changes imposed by a CS:GO update last month and it kind of showed. C9 actually made it a battle, which they eventually lost 16-12, but it was still a much better showing than their own map pick Overpass where they got steamrolled 16-7.
The highlight of the day was certainly the meeting between two in-form teams – Natus Vincere and FaZe Clan. The international squad was off to a better start on Nuke and it was up to Na’Vi to make the comeback happen. A Dust2 epic that went down to the final round was exactly what Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev and co. needed to boost their confidence ahead of the deciding map. A 9-6 FaZe halftime lead on Overpass was overturned by a near-perfect Na’Vi defense after the break for a 16-10 map win and a 2-1 final match score.
The other games that were played on the day were a bit too one-sided for the viewer’s liking. Renegades almost forced a third map versus Fnatic but choked away a 14-6 lead on Inferno by losing ten straight rounds.
Safe to say Australia was not having a good day at all in Katowice. The second team from down under present at the Spodek Arena – 100 Thieves, got trounced by G2 16-3; 16-2 in the final game of the day.
Ninjas in Pyjamas had enough in the tank to go head to head with Team Vitality for one half in each map, but the French pulled away after the side-switch both times – 16-12; 16-10.
Last but not least, perhaps the team that’s most on fire at the moment – mousesports, hardly broke a sweat against TyLoo. The Chinese are in Poland instead of ViCi Gaming, who were held back by visa issues, but couldn’t do much in their tournament opener.
IEM Katowice continues in full swing today with six more games on the schedule:
- Team Liquid – Virtus.pro
- Evil Geniuses – MAD Lions
- Astralis – Team Vitality
- Ninjas in Pyjamas – Cloud9
- Natus Vincere – Fnatic
- FaZe Clan – Renegades
Who are your favorites on the day? Drop your predictions down under!
