BetBoom rise as SINNERS fall on day two of IEM Cologne

It was a bad day for GamerLegion 3-0 pickers, and an even worse day for poor beastik.

We felt genuinely sorry for him giving his post-game interview after losing 0-2 to TYLOO where he suggested he'd rather have not qualified at all than gone 0-3 like this, which was actually quite heartbreaking. He's put his heart and soul into the game, and this team, and been crushed by it.

Poor guy.

SINNERS had plenty of chances to take down TYLOO today, including losing from 8-4 up on their own pick thanks to an absolutely extraordinary performance from Zero. He went 19-8 in 15 total T rounds, including an ace to keep the game alive down 9-12, and multiple fantastic rounds throughout.

SINNERS once more had a lead on Inferno, but this time found absolution at the hands of Jee, who found multifrags holding down A when the game seemed to be slipping away from TYLOO. He had over a kill per round on the defense, and felt impenetrable.

It was a sad day for SINNERS, and the end of this Major run, but hopefully not their Major dreams forever.

On a more positive note, BetBoom are flying even without a stand-in. We said that even though Boombl4's data looked bad, he had big moments in him, and he led from the front in this one with a hilarious 9-9-9 scoreline as they tonked GamerLegion 13-2 on Nuke. Incredibly, GamerLegion won nine opening duels to BB's five on that map.

Magnojez wasn't really needed on Nuke, but dovetailed beautifully with FL4MUS in the way we'd hoped he would, and in the way that makes BB a frightening prospect, on Ancient. This one was a bit closer, but it still felt like BetBoom were in control throughout, and more than deserve their 3-0.

B8 joined BetBoom in the 3-0 bracket as they needed multiple overtimes to get the better of M80. It was nice to see s1zz1 show us a little more of what he can do after a pretty middling start to life on B8, and a rare carry performance from alex666. B8 managed to get through without npl really popping off, which is both encouraging and worrying in equal measure.

Gaimin Gladiators were eliminated in pretty humiliating fashion, as they had the lowest round win rate in the Swiss system in Major history. They were soundly beaten by HEROIC, obviously.

kl1m, despite being announced as available for transfer mid-game (albeit by G2, not MIBR), put Team Liquid to the sword to drop them into a 1-2 game. Once more, we feel sorry for malbsMd, who can't really do much more. Even ultimate played well and it still didn't matter.

BIG coasted past THUNDER dOWNUNDER, while Lynn Vision were remarkably clean in victory over Sharks. z4KR went crazy in that one - the guy has a penchant for the ridiculous, especially wallbangs.

Sonic had a pretty monstrous game to knock FlyQuest down to the lower bracket, to close out the 1-1 games.

Tomorrow's games have some absolute corkers lined up. You can see them all here, and today's results here if you want some more details or just a quick check to make sure we aren't lying to you.

Perhaps the headline fixture is Liquid vs HEROIC for elimination, which is something neither of them will be happy about. HEROIC should win on paper given Liquid's form, but Liquid have been not horrendous so far and HEROIC have been well off the boil. Over three maps you'd expect HEROIC to make it happen, but stranger things have happened.

THUNDER dOWNUNDER have a chance to survive against their brethren FlyQuest, which is a must-watch.

GamerLegion take on BIG for qualification to stage two, which should be one of the highest quality games of the whole group stage. TYLOO meet Sharks for survival in one that will have significantly less polish but probably more insanity.

MIBR take on Lynn Vision in another game that seems one-sided on paper, but in reality could be a bit tighter. LVG are not a bad team at all, and MIBR have looked beatable. M80 and NRG is another domestic derby, but one we're much less excited about, and should be an M80 win.