The final day of the New Challengers stage concluded today, and the team list for the next stage of the IEM Katowice Major is set.
Ninjas in Pyjamas, G2 Esports, and Cloud9 rounded out the challenger team list by defeating ViCi, TyLoo, and Winstrike in the 2-2 decider matches today. They advance and join NRG Esports, Renegades, ENCE Esports, Team Vitality, and AVANGAR as upcoming challengers in the next portion of the $1 million tournament, the New Legends stage.
In NiP vs. ViCi, the Swedes took map one Train convincingly and lost Inferno despite insane plays from Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg, Dennis Edman, and Jonas “Lekr0” Olofsson. The decider, Mirage, went in favor of NiP after they won both pistol rounds and dominated on their T side.
Related: NiP, G2, and C9 survive day 4 of the New Challengers stage at IEM Katowice
TyLoo, ViCi’s Chinese counterpart, struggled in their decider match today vs. G2 as well. Even though they came back on map one Mirage on their CT side, the French team crushed them in the latter maps, Dust II and Cache. Star AWPer Kenny “kennyS” Schrub also picked up a nice one-vs-three clutch on Dust II, with 22 frags to his name, 132.3 average damage per round, and a 100 kill/assist/survive/trade (KAST) percentage.
Cloud9 finally swept Winstrike to end the day, winning Nuke without much of a fight from the CIS underdog and later taking Overpass in overtime on T side. Will “RUSH” Wierzba dropped 31 kills and had a number of crucial impact frags in the North American victory.
Round five
2-2 matches
Ninjas in Pyjamas vs. ViCi Gaming
- NiP won Train 16-7
- ViCi won Inferno 16-13
- NiP won Mirage 16-10
G2 Esports vs. TyLoo
- TyLoo won Mirage 16-12
- G2 won Dust II 16-2
- G2 won Cache 16-7
Cloud9 vs. Winstrike
- C9 won Nuke 16-7
- C9 won Overpass 19-16
The IEM Katowice Major continues on Wednesday, Feb. 20, starting with the initial best-of-one matches of the New Legends stage. Legend teams who await their challengers for another week of Counter-Strike include Astralis, Natus Vincere, Team Liquid, FaZe Clan, BIG, HellRaisers, MIBR, and compLexity Gaming.
