After the first day of competition, the teams in Group A continued into day 2 with matches in both the winners’ and losers’ brackets, attracting a large audience in the community with thrilling matchups like Astralis – Vitality and Na`Vi – Fnatic. Let’s highlight some notable moments from day 2 of IEM Katowice 2020!
The Disappointment Named ZywOo
The top 20 CS:GO players of 2019 caused a shock last January when they crowned ZywOo – the young French player – as the world’s number 1, even though his team Vitality had not achieved many notable accomplishments. However, with an incredibly impressive individual rating, ZywOo is still considered deserving of the #1 spot.
However, when facing top teams in important tournaments, it seems ZywOo cannot unleash his natural instincts, especially evident in yesterday’s match against Astralis.
In map 1 Overpass, ZywOo only managed a mere 9 kills – the lowest on the team – and frequently lost to Astralis’ device, currently ranked the third-best player in the world, in crucial 1v1 encounters. Moving to map 2 Vertigo, ZywOo performed better and had some standout individual moments, but Vitality still allowed Astralis to come back from 6-12 to win 22-19.
Golden Dragon Exhausted, Unable to Soar High Against Fnatic
Also in the winners’ bracket of Group A, Na`Vi and Fnatic put on an incredibly exciting bo3 match. After losing map 1 Dust 2, Na`Vi made a strong comeback in map 2 Inferno (Fnatic’s pick) with s1mple’s high performance, helping Na`Vi pull off a nail-biting comeback from 10-13 to 16-14.
However, individual excellence was not enough for Na`Vi’s young lineup to overcome the extremely experienced players from Fnatic like Krimz and Flusha. Losing 12-16 in map 3 Mirage, Na`Vi had to drop down to the losers’ bracket, but fans shouldn’t be too disappointed as Fnatic is currently the most successful team in Katowice history with 3 championships.
Farewell to Cloud9 and Renegades
Aside from the exciting matches in the winners’ bracket, in the losers’ bracket of Group A, fans had to say goodbye to the first two teams at Katowice 2020. Renegades stood no chance against a powerful FaZe Clan and lost cleanly 0-2, while Cloud9 faced a similar fate, unable to win a single map against NiP. The young ninjas of NiP crushed their North American opponents 16-2 on map 1 Overpass and 16-9 on map 2 Vertigo, continuing to nurture hopes of stepping out of the shadows of past legends.
Apart from the developments in Group A, Group B of Katowice 2020 also concluded with the last 2 matches of the opening round yesterday, and unsurprisingly, Liquid and EG both secured victories against the lower-rated opponents MAD Lions and Virtus.pro.
Day 3 matches (February 26) of IEM Katowice 2020:
18:00: 100 Thieves vs. TYLOO
18:00: Virtus.pro vs. MAD Lions
21:30: G2 Esports vs. Mousesports
21:30: NiP vs. Na`Vi
01:00 (February 27): Liquid vs. EG
01:00 (February 27): Vitality vs. FaZe
Fans can catch the matches of IEM Katowice 2020 with Vietnamese commentary on the 500Bros YouTube channel!