Whilst Heroic and the Brazilian hometown heroes FURIA have already clinched a semi-final appearance, four more teams will start in the quarter-finals of IEM Rio 2024, on Friday.
Besides group winners Heroic and FURIA, runners-up Vitality and Natus Vincere have progressed to the Farmasi Arena.
The latter two are set to face the winners of the advancement games, that were played on Wednesday.
The first encounter saw Russian side Virtus Pro face The MongolZ. This game was surprisingly one-sided.
VP stole The MongolZ' map pick of Ancient 13-10. It was a great team effort by the Dzhami "Jame" Ali led VP side, with 4/5 players hitting double-digit kill-counts.
Elbow becomes a meat grinder and @electronicCSGO is the operator #IEM pic.twitter.com/N6vHYr19zq
— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) October 9, 2024
Their own map choice of Dust 2 was a walk in the park for the Russians. Former NaVi star and major winner Denis "electroNic" Sharipov popped off with an insane 20-8 K/D-ratio!
THIS. IS. JAME. TIME. #IEM @JAMEPAIN pic.twitter.com/KUUq5Snj0X
— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) October 9, 2024
They closed it out comfortably with a 13-3 victory to advance onto the quarters. VP will face NaVi in the early game on Friday, starting at 17:00 CEST.
The second all or nothing matchup saw FaZe Clan, with 3 former mousesports players, take on the German org of MOUZ.
The Finn "karrigan" Anderson led group has been struggling as off late, dropping into the lower bracket on day 1 of the event right away.
FaZe went with Dust 2 as their map pick, a regretful decision, as they only managed to win 3 T-side rounds.
MOUZ got a nice carry by their AWPer Ádám "torzsi" Torzsás, as well as Dorian "xertioN" Berman.
xertioN had this important 1v2 clutch early on in the contest:
Bro just saved our a** pic.twitter.com/lhKvdHdFXV
— MOUZ (@mousesports) October 9, 2024
MOUZ took Dust by 13-7 and looked in prime position to 2-0 the series.
But FaZe fought back!
Mr. CS2 himself, Robin "ropz" Kool had a fantastic map of Mirage, posting 26 kills and guiding FaZe to an unlikely 16-14 overtime win.
"They are not laughing anymore" pic.twitter.com/jHGmlKEepw
— HLTV.org (@HLTVorg) October 9, 2024
An intense, deciding map of Nuke was looming. A map karrigan has a great legacy on, claiming his major win, at PGL Antwerp 2022, on it. But it was all MOUZ again!
Their young in game leader Kamil "siuhy" Szkaradek had the perfect game plan ready.
Assisting him with a strong performance on the 3rd map, was their anchor, Jimi "jimpphat" Salo. The 18-year-old wonder kid won them the second pistol round of the map, by delivering this incredible sequence:
SPINBOTTING IS NOT ALLOWED JIMI #IEM @jimpphatCSGO pic.twitter.com/PHOzEIBxl8
— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) October 9, 2024
MOUZ took another 13-7 victory, claiming Nuke, the series and a playoff berth. They are set to face Team Vitality in the late matchup on Friday, at around 20:00 CEST.
See you in the arena @mousesports pic.twitter.com/LqBehMnJ0Q
— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) October 9, 2024
That rounds out our playoff bracket, you can see it visualized below once again:
Who do you think is going to win the event? Will Vitality be able to defend their title?