The review of the Intel Extreme Masters XII: Sydney playoff

The first large CS:GO tournament in Australia has come to the end today, in which SK Gaming became champions. Time has come to take stock.

The first map in the semi-final match between SK Gaming and OpTic Gaming was the fastest among all played maps at the playoff stage. The biggest divide between rounds was registered in the match between Brazilians and Americans: SK Gaming won OpTic with a score 16:1 on the map de_train. de_overpass became the next and the last map for OpTic, where Americans lost with a score 7:16. Marcelo «coldzera» David became the best player of the match.

An interesting fact: only one player had a positive statistics on kills\deaths among all players of OpTic Gaming. Keith «NAF» Markovic had 16 kills and 15 deaths on de_overpass. The rest of players had negative statistics on both maps.

The teams’ statistics on de_train:

The teams’ statistics on de_overpass:

Two world strongest teams, according to HLTV.org, faced each other in the second semi-final match: Astralis, which holds the 1st place, and FaZe Clan, which holds the 2nd place in the world top. According to most of analysts and viewers, this match as the final was equal. Both teams are strong and stable enough. Astralis had overcome FaZe Clan in the Grand Final of Intel Extreme Masters XI: World Championship but FaZe Clan won Astralis in the Grand Final of StarLadder i-League StarSeries Season 3. FaZe Clan overcame the Danes again at IEM XII: Sydney and came out to the Grand Final. Nikola «NiKo» Kovac. became the best player of the match.

The general teams’ statistics:

In the final match SK Gaming, which participated the best at the group stage, faced FaZe Clan, which held the 3rd place. Teams decided to ban de_cobblestone and de_nuke.

de_train became the first match for teams to fight at. SK Gaming showed enough aggressive and confident game on it. Despite the map to be picked by FaZe Clan, it was evident that SK Gaming had trained this map and as a result didn’t allow their opponents to win. SK Gaming played as counter-terrorists in the first half of the map and, having shown the decisive defense, won the first side with a score 12:3. After the first half FaZe Clan made a nice try to come back and to take the lead but, having taken 9 rounds, they lost the decisive 16th round and lost the first map. João «felps» Vasconcellos — the best player on the map.

The teams’ statistics on de_train:

The Chernobyl zone — the map de_cache became the next battlefield, where teams faced each other. Brazilians played as terrorists in the first half and as on the previous map took a great advantage, having won 11 rounds. After their move to the side of counter-terrorists, the Brazilian team had no problem to suppress its opponents and to put the second map in its cashbox. The game was finished with a score 16:7 in favor of SK Gaming. The captain of Brazilians — Gabriel «FalleN» Toledo became the best player of the match.

The teams’ statistics on de_cache:

The 3rd map, where the confrontation between SK Gaming and FaZe Clan happened, was de_inferno, which had been chosen on the pick stage by the European team. FaZe Clan started its way to victory on the map as terrorists, they could overcome their opponents with a score 10:5, having shown a fair team play, good individual skills and decisive actions. After SK Gaming had changed its side to terrorists and started winning round by round, FaZe Clan gathered themselves up and could complete the work they had begun, having finished the game with a score 16:13. Havard «rain» Nygaard — the best player on the map.

The teams’ statistics on de_inferno:

de_overpass became the 4th and the decisive map. FaZe Clan started as counter-terrorists on it. Despite de_overpass to be chosen by Brazilian team, FaZe could steadily play the first half and run over their opponents with a score 9:6. However, SK Gaming put a bold face on and won 10 rounds as counter-terrorists, having lost only two rounds to their opponents. The best player on the map is Marcelo «coldzera» David.

The teams’ statistics on de_overpass:

Unfortunately for many viewers, the match on de_mirage didn’t happen and the best-of-five (bo5) match was limited to 4 maps.

The top-5 best players of the Grand Final:

Marcelo «coldzera» DavidJoao «felps» VasconcellosNikola «NiKo» KovacHavard «rain» NygaardFernando «fer» Alvarenga

The general teams’ statistics:

I said in my preview that FaZe Clan was the first pretender for the victory, Astralis was the second one and SK Gaming was the third one. It turned out that Astralis became the bronze medalists, FaZe Clan — the vice-champions and SK Gaming — the deserved champions, who won the second LAN-tournament in a row.

The following conclusions can be made during the tournament:

— SK Gaming is in a brilliant condition and is ready to conquer the next tournaments. Probably, Brazilians will hold the 3rd place in the list of best teams in the world, according to HLTV.org, having removed Virtus.pro from there.

— Nikola «NiKo» Kovac has proved again that his move to the team FaZe Clan, which cost ~$500,000 for the organization, has not been in vain. The native of Bosnia and Herzegovina is the element, which the team has been lacked for a long time. If FaZe Clan shows a great effort and a good performance in future, they will be able to become the 1st international team to hold the top of the list of best teams, according to HLTV.org.

— If OpTic Gaming wants to start winning at the tournaments again or to show high results, the American team will have to find the 5th player to hold a position on the main roster. Having a regular member of the team to train with, the roster will be able to achieve greater heights.

— Chiefs eSports Club is Australian newcomers, who deserve an attention. Having won Renegades with a destroying score at the tournament and the team North, which according to forecasts of many analysts, had to come out to the playoff, Australians have proved that they have a chance to fight their way to the professional CS:GO scene.

Brazilians signally played in all stages of the championship. We congratulate SK Gaming with the deserved victory and coldzera with a 5th medal of the MVP player from HLTV.org.