Saturday’s match day actions at the IEM Cologne 2024 Group Stage have thrown in the air, a couple of interesting results that may define the remaining of the CS2 tournament. Big upsets happened over the weekend as two big teams, G2 and Team Spirit, moved closer to being eliminated from the competition after losing their respective fixtures.
Before the start of IEM Cologne 2024, power rankings tagged G2 and Spirit as some of the tournament’s big favorites but rather ironically, just after one day of play, both teams are at the risk of being eliminated. Unfortunately, the two teams will play each other to retain their spot in the competition.
Defending champions, G2 lost in a quick 2:0 loss to SAW, while The MongolZ dispatched Team Spirit in a similar manner. However, despite the status of the losing teams, their performance was unsurprising as malbsMd struggled to perform for G2 while Donk’s inconsistency hampered Team Spirit alongside zont1x’s disappointing display.
Elsewhere, FaZe Clan had a mountain to climb as they were on a poor run as they prepared to face Team Liquid who were unbeaten. It was also an IGL battle between karrigan vs Twistzz and it was the master who overcame in a 2:0 score as FaZe Clan in a close series.
Elsewhere, Astralis and NAVI were favourites in their fixtures against 9z Team and paiN Gaming respectively, and they both recorded 2:0 wins. Astralis’ Staehr and jabbi performed brilliantly even in the absence of a good display from stavn. NAVI’s players showed dominance and racked up a high number of kills.
Results from Saturday’s IEM Cologne 2024 Group Stage action:
FaZe Clan 2:0 Team Liquid
Complexity 2:1 Virtus.pro
SAW 2:0 G2
Astralis 2:0 9z Team
The MongolZ 2:0 Spirit
NAVI 2:0 paiN Gaming
