FURIA and MOUZ coast to semi-final berths - IEM Krakow Quarter-Finals

It turns out when you don't change much, not much changes. Enlightening.

FURIA and MOUZ both stood still in the roster season, which theoretically allowed the next in line to catch up; but G2 also decided to tread water, and Aurora made a lateral move. soulfly showed glimpses in the group stages of maybe being a difference maker, but as has so often been the story with Aurora, he offered nothing on the big stage.

FURIA - or more accurately, KSCERATO, absolutely eviscerated Aurora. We'd tricked ourselves into believing in Aurora again, and that FURIA were a bit wobbly, in the preview yesterday, but as soon as the game was live that belief proved to be borne of folly and little else.

Seven rounds on the T side of Dust 2 isn't an unrealistic target for Aurora in theory, but KSCERATO put up a near flawless performance on the defence to make it a pretty one-sided map. Aurora just could not avoid him, and they could not seem to kill him before he got at least a kill either. This is the KSCERATO that had us believing he might be one of the best players in the world going into the Rio Major, and if he keeps playing like that... maybe he is.

He then went on to drop a masterclass on the T side of Mirage, though in fairness, you could pick any FURIA player there. We'd like to point out YEKINDAR, who did some pretty difficult work exceptionally well, and regularly got off more damage than he was worth. He won't get the headlines, but he has our heart.

Aurora had probably one chance to get back in this game and stop it being a complete whitewash, but when the old duo of yuurih and KSCERATO won a 2v4 on the pistol round, it was all over.

FURIA rise to face Spirit tomorrow.

G2 put up much more of a fight against MOUZ, but missed a crucial chance to go 12-0 up in the series and paid for it.

They had two match points on Overpass despite SunPayus failing to show up on what is ostensibly an AWP-favoured map, and could have snuck away with an important win, but Spinx took matters into his own hands and won MOUZ the game almost on his own.

malbsMd was a driving force for G2 as he found pick after pick, and even when traded off he created space and chaos on both sides, and MATYS had a handful of hugey impactful moments, but MOUZ won three clutches that turned the tides for them and won them a map they were, essentially, second best in. torzsi won a pretty ugly but important 1v2 at 9-9, and that probably should have been a moment that sealed the deal, but MOUZ were not at their best whatsoever.

G2 should have won this map - but they made too many costly errors.

This came back to bite them when they were soundly beaten on Dust 2. malbs found seven opening kills on Overpass, but found zero on Dust 2, and G2 combined for just four. It felt like it too - they were constantly on the backfoot, and needed a clutch from HeavyGod to go into the CT side even, which is never a good position to be in on Dust 2.

Predictably, their woes continued, as MOUZ sliced through their porous defence and finished the series in a fashion unbefitting what should have been an exciting semi-final.

Fortunately, we have MOUZ vs Vitality tomorrow night. Yummy.