FUT sucker punch a sleepy FURIA - IEM Krakow Stage 2

FUT gave FURIA the shock of their lives with a dominant 2-0 to kick off Stage 2 of IEM Krakow.

dem0n had an unbelievable game, especially on Mirage, with some of the dirtiest headshots you’ll ever see. The numbers might have lauNX on a similar level, but some of what dem0n was doing to FURIA has to be seen to be believed.

molodoy continued his one man mission to drag FURIA to the top of the standings, and was key in bringing back a 2-10 half to 11-12 on Mirage, but eventually FUT closed it out, albeit not as cleanly as hoped. There were no such qualms on Dust 2, with FUT winning 13-6 and dziugss and Krabeni joining the party.

This was an accomplished performance, and you’d struggle to believe that FURIA were the favourites if you weren’t already aware.

ZywOo got the better of s1mple in the much-anticipated meeting of two of the best players to ever touch the game, though in truth, it was only ever going to go one way.

The first map was underwhelming in the sense that neither truly strutted their stuff, but in the second we got to see the titans head-to-head, duking it out for who could carry their team harder. Just one problem; one team was significantly heavier than the other.

That is to say, that Vitality are far better than BC.Game man for man, and s1mple carrying them to a win over Vitality and ZywOo would be akin to Sisyphus reaching the top of the hill with his boulder.

That's a slightly dramatic reading; s1mple was BC.Game's best player in the second map, and did look like a top class AWPer, while ZywOo was allowed the freedom to do what he does best, flitting around gracefully and picking apart teams with ease.

s1mple needs a better team.

While that was going on, 3DMAX absolutely goobed FaZe on the B stream, with FaZe spending longer in tech pauses than in the lead. 3DMAX absolutely steamrolled them on Nuke 13-2, after taking Inferno 13-7, despite both maps in theory being quite good for FaZe.

Graviti was exceptional on Inferno and continued that into Nuke, but in truth the story is not about 3DMAX at all. This is a team who FaZe, even at their lowest, continiously smacked around last year, and just got demolished by.

broky might not be long for this world. Or, well, this team.

Twistzz had possibly the worst series of his life, as well. We're not even talking stats here, he just looked completely out of it. He offered little resistance and cut a frustrated figure all game long. Something is deeply wrong with FaZe.

Until they make another playoffs, obviously.

NAVI were pushed to a third map by PARIVISION, but were pretty comfortable on Ancient to close out the win.

PARIVISION are an interesting team right now given what they did at BLAST Bounty, and have had some impressive wins here too, but this was a step too far for them today. zweih had a very good game again, which is encouraging, but nota went missing and that hurt PARIVISION badly.

Spirit 2-0'd Astralis in maybe the least surprising result of the day, but did need donk to step up as sh1ro did his best broky impression. Astralis pushed them all the way to OT on Dust 2, and it should be said, looked very much like the plucky tier two team they now aspire to be.

They're pretty good, just without any star power whatsoever.

Another player who had a terrible day at the office was mzinho, who got absolutely no joy out of G2 in the opening series on the B stream, as G2 rolled the MongolZ on Dust 2 and finished the job in map 2. SunPayus topped the scoreboard, but it was huNter who stole the show, rolling back the... years? on Dust 2, which seems like a mean thing to say, but it's true. He was as good today as he's been in a long, long time.