FaZe collapse to an 0-2 loss to Alliance on FISSURE Playground 3 first day

twist got the better of Twistzz as both put up stellar performances - but FaZe crashed to a loss in a game against one of the lowest ranked teams at the event.

Alliance came in to the event with low expectations, at least from the public, but a convincing win over FaZe will do a lot for their reputation. FaZe have been rejuvenated since the signing of JBOEN and Neityu permanently, but this was a collision with Earth that may just humble them. Not least jcobbb, who had been the face of the aforementioned rejuvenation, but he had a pretty horrible game in this one.

Twistzz put up 26 in a 9-13 loss (!) on Ancient, and we're still entirely unsure as to how he ended up on the losing side. He was an absolute phenom - the stand-out round being him picking off twist, stealing the AWP and then taking down three more with the sniper including a quickscope on the final player.

But when Neityu, JBOEN and jcobbb put up 21 combined (!!), it doesn't matter how indomitable Twistzz was.

JBOEN at least came to life on Nuke, matching his opposite number twist with 21, largely on the AWP, but Twistzz fell off and jcobbb still failed to ignite, leaving FaZe just shy of the firepower they needed to take down a plucky and intelligent Alliance, who outthought, outmanoeuvred and outplayed FaZe in the small margins.

Astralis defeated an as always confounding G2 team 13-5 in the decider after G2 worked extremely hard to take it to a third.

G2 lost a big lead on Mirage but fought back in double OT to seal the map and push us to a decider, just to fall entirely flat and only muster up five rounds as Astralis just seemed a step ahead the whole time.

G2 are prone to massive swings in performance, not least from their stars, and we saw a bit of downswing from r1nkle and MATYS who both bottomfragged a lost map with a pretty poor showing, while Astralis just did what they do - put in a consistently good performance, and that's often enough to beat G2.

jabbi was a constant threat throughout the series, powering the Astralis comeback on Mirage but being a hugely positive contributor on the two won maps too, while Staehr had huge impact on Ancient and everyone had big moments on Inferno.

G2 are not down and out, and we're not entirely surprised to see them fall so flat, but we are a little disappointed.

FURIA annihilated GamerLegion on Dust 2 to end an otherwise close series.

GamerLegion started the series with an 11-1 half on the T side of Cache, but let FURIA get within one round of overtime before finally closing it out. FL4MUS was an absolute monster on the T side and yuurih and KSCERATO seemed completely out of sorts, but all changed at the half as yuurih morphed into a all-powerful super-tank. We went from 2-10 to 13-13 by the end, which is a tale all in itself.

molodoy did what he could on Cache, and on Mirage he continued his dominance, this time with YEKINDAR up alongside him. When those two are on it, FURIA very rarely lose. GamerLegion kept it close, and were even leading at the half, but FURIA's defence was too strong.

It all was leading to a climactic finish, but Dust 2 was a bit of a flop. FURIA were barely tested, and a lot of that came down to GamerLegion's stand-in, Grashog, who ran entirely out of steam. We don't really blame him - he had been serviceable up to this point - but missing Snax really, really stung when Grashox went 2-14.

Eesh.

FL1T smashed TYLOO on Ancient to give PARIVISION a shot at FURIA.

Inferno was close as JamYoung once again proved himself clearly the best player in the region as he dragged TYLOO into a round 24 they didn't deserve to be in, and once he tailed off on Ancient, FL1T dropped a bomb on TYLOO's head and made this a simple 2-0 for PARIVISION.

MIBR took down The MongolZ in overtime on Inferno thanks to a stand-out decider performance from nqz, who ended round 28 with a 31-13 scoreline. It wasn't the first explosive AWPer performance in the series - 910 was unbelievably good on Ancient to gift The MongolZ a simple win, but even he couldn't get Mirage over the line as insani and the new boy tomaszin took over, before nqz won Inferno on his own.

magic took a map off of Legacy, who continue to baffle as much as they amaze, and BetBoom muscled past BIG in two close maps.

Wildcard team 5star did little to give us much hope, as 9z dealt with them in swift fashion. dgt and max went a combined 74-32.