IEM Cologne Major Live Blog Stage 3 – Day 1

The Cathedral doors swing open. Sixteen teams walk in, only eight will survive. Stage 3, Day 1 🔴 live updates from Cologne.

⌚ 20:45 CEST

NAVI 0-2 Spirit

Even the best teams in the world are not immune from a thorough donking sometimes.

This time it wasn't just donk, but it was large portions of donk. sh1ro is also here. Horrifying.

You can analyse this game if you want. It's pointless, though. One team has donk, and the other doesn't.

⌚ 18:30 CEST

Aurora 2-0 Monte

Are we allowed to be a bit bored by a game at this stage?

Sorry.

Bymas had a stinker, Aurora were functional if not pretty... we have concerns over both of these teams from this BO3, and if Monte were to cause an upset one imagines they needed to win this game.

⌚16:10 CEST

FURIA 2-0 B8

FURIA made light work of this one, after we spent so much time bigging up B8. Oops! Inferno was pretty one-sided after a somewhat closer first map, but it never felt like B8 were truly going to win it.

⌚17:00 CEST

Falcons 2-1 G2

Falcons managed to sneak past G2 despite karrigan having two separate halves with zero kills. NiKo was ridiculously good all series long, even if his best map came in a loss, fittingly.

These two will both cause problems. As we already knew, really.

⌚ 14:10 CEST

Team Vitality 2-1 FUT

FUT were mounting a comeback on Nuke, but apEX drove a nail in the coffin with a nasty double entry onto A to bring Vitality a first win in Cologne.

FUT won Anubis to push Vitality into waking up, and boy did they. You don't want to wind up ZywOo, or you get smashed right back. The rookies have done themselves no disservice in this one, but sometimes greatness is just unbeatable.

⌚ 14:10 CEST

MOUZ 2-0 Legacy

A routine win for MOUZ in this one. Legacy were fighting shadows. Pick a MOUZ player and you could argue they were the best player in the server. Pick a Legacy player and you could pretty much do the opposite.

That's the type of MOUZ performance that makes you think they could go on and... well, lose a quarter-final, probably.

⌚ 11:00 CEST

9z 2-1 PARIVISION

PARIVISION became the first team to lose a game in stage three as 9z put them in the blender on Overpass and finished them off on Inferno for the 2-1 win.

luchov has had a bit of a breakout in the last few months and he was absolutely ridiculous in this game, dropping one of the highest rated Major maps ever on Overpass and finishing the series with 70 kills.

It was a 13-1 first map for the South Americans, with luchov collecting 23 kills in those 14 rounds. Ridiculous.

⌚ 11:00 CEST

BetBoom 2-1 MongolZ

BetBoom continued their run of great form with a win over The MongolZ in a tight deciding map.

Two of these maps went to 24 rounds, with one win a piece, but BetBoom were comfortable on Mirage in between those to grab an opening day win.

BetBoom are looking scarier and scarier, and cannot be disrespected. FL4MUS wasn't really meant to be a long term fit for this team, but he's been excellent since joining and this was another example of that.