FaZe Clan has emerged as the first-ever Counter-Strike 2 eSports champions after a thrilling grand final at the IEM Sydney 2023. This was the inaugural Counter-Strike 2 eSports tournament and kicked off on October 16.
FaZe Clan clashed with Complexity Gaming for the title of the first top-tier Counter-Strike 2 eSports tournament and beat its rivals 2-1 to clinch the win and qualify for IEM Katowice 2024. The thrilling three-map series saw the teams go to overtime as they battled for the title of IEM Sydney 2023.
FaZe Clan Crowned Winners of the IEM Sydney 2023 Counter-Strike 2 eSports Tournament
FaZe Clan was the favorite team coming into the tournament, but Complexity Gaming was somewhat of a surprise and was expended to finish somewhere at the bottom of the table at the end of the tournament. Complexity beat Monte 13-9 in the opening match and then struggled as it lost 2-0 to G2. However, Complexity Gaming quickly turned things around and won its next three out of four matches, eventually reaching the final.
FaZe Clan lost its first match 19-15 in overtime against GamerLegion and was in a difficult situation. However, the team then put up exceptional performances in its next match and defeated heavyweights like Vitality, NAVI, GamerLegion, Mouz, and ENCE, finally facing Complexity Gaming at the IEM Sydney Grand Finals.
FROM THE LOWER BRACKET@FaZeClan take the #IEM Sydney Grand Final 2-1 against @Complexity and make Counter-Strike HISTORY!
11-13 Overpass
13-10 Nuke
19-16 Ancient pic.twitter.com/Q0qikwRhcb— Intel® Extreme Masters (@IEM) October 22, 2023
FaZe Clan and Complexity Gaming grabbed their spots in the grand finals with exceptional performances during the playoffs. The final was very thrilling, with Complexity Gaming clinching the first set on Overpass. It defeated FaZe Clan 13-11 and took the lead 1-0 in the best-of-3 final series. FaZe Clan wasn’t to be left behind as it won the next map 13-10 taking the final to map three, Ancient.
The IEM Sydney was one of the most memorable finals in IEM history, as Complexity Gaming put on an impressive performance to come back from being 9-3 down and bring it back to 10-9 with six straight wins. In the last few rounds, Complexity Gaming continued its form, taking the Counter-Strike 2 eSports tournament grand finals to two overtimes.
However, FaZe Clan was able to recover from being one down, and was impressive in the second half, and took the trophy home with a massive share of the $250,000 prize pool, emerging as the IEM Sydney Counter-Strike 2 eSports tournament, with ‘Ropz’ being the ESL Pro Tour DHL MVP. Håvard “Rain” Nygaard had a message for FaZe Clan fans post-match. He stated:
It feels amazing to be the first CS2 champion. I want to say thank you to all our fans here and around the world. This was hands down the best crowd I’ve ever played in front of.
MVP Robin ‘Ropz’ Kool shared his thoughts on the massive title win, saying:
It feels great, we’ve spent so much time practicing CS2 together before this. The first loss against GamerLegion hurt, but we stuck with it and managed to come back. It’s been a turbulent year for us, but I’ve been playing as much as possible, and CS2 gave us the motivational boost to improve our performance and work harder for this IEM.
With its IEM Sydney 2023 title win, FaZe Clan has now qualified for the IEM Katowice 2024, which will take place from January 31, 2024, to February 11, 2024, with a massive $1,000,000 prize pool. The tournament will feature 24 teams, with 16 teams starting from the play-in stage and 8 teams coming directly from the group stage.
G2 and MOUZ have already qualified for the group stages at the IEM Katowice 2024 with their IEM Cologne and ESL Pro League title wins, and five teams will directly qualify for the group through the ESL world rankings. The rest of the teams will then qualify for the tournament through the play-in stage. The 16 teams for the play-in will be decided through ESL ranking or by ESL event wins.
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