Legacy win Brazilian derby as G2 reverse sweep BETBOOM
Legacy took Inferno in overtime to close out a pulsating derby game and book the first grand final spot.
Legacy's star duo of latto and dumau provided a magnificent rearguard action on Nuke to collect seven CT rounds, before arT provided the killing blow on the attack. 22 kills between latto and dumau got Legacy off to a solid start, with both taking it in turns to shut MIBR down at every turn.
That three of MIBR's five T rounds came off of 1vX's tells it's own story - nqz won two seemingly crucial clutches to stop dumau and latto from completely ruining the MIBR offence, and insani won another - he was, unsurprisingly, the stand-out in what could have been a disastrous start for MIBR.
insani continued to kill everything in his path, but he and nqz were left to do it all by themselves as arT ruined the MIBR comeback, ironically enough, with two 1vX clutches of his own. MIBR had just started to look like they could take the game, but arT ruined the party and pushed Legacy to a first map win.
nqz was once more at the front of a lot of what MIBR did well on Ancient, but this time LNZ stood up tall with him with some hugely impactful rounds.
The series looked dead and buried when Legacy went into the second half 8-4 up and then won the pistol round, but MIBR rallied to steal the forcebuy back and rolled that into four more in a row. Legacy finally broke the streak with two of their own, but another multikill from nqz in a crucial late-game round put MIBR back in control and saw them get to a third.
tomaszin is the newest member of MIBR, and he nearly put in a match-winning performance that would have cemented his place in MIBR fans' hearts.
Legacy knew they were in trouble after he put up a superb ace in round five to give MIBR their second round, which made up only a quarter of the kills he got on the CT side, albeit with overtime.
Sadly for him, he only managed nine on the T side, as his whole team seemed to collapse under the weight of pressure. While this may not be the biggest tournament or the brightest lights, beating Legacy in a semi-final on stage is no mean feat, and so it proved.
MIBR blew up the bomb thrice in succession to put themselves in pole position, but a streak from Legacy where n1ssim, arT and latto all woke up put the game back into the balance. Back-and-forth it went, to overtime.
Once more these teams could not be separated, and when MIBR found three kills to start off round 30, it looked like double overtime was looming - but the pressure, again, told on poor MIBR - who let an unloseable round slip.
n1ssim and try broke their hearts.
G2 survived a massive scare to take down BETBOOM in three maps.
MATYS was the lone holdout as BB crushed G2's Mirage defence to open up a very ominous 1-0 lead. BETBOOM have been lights out at this event, and when they so cleanly beat G2 on Mirage we thought this one might be a quick one, just as Legacy had threatened to beat MIBR so quickly. Similarly, that did not occur.
NertZ put in a supreme performance on Anubis to keep G2 in it, winning two clutches and picking up 28 kills en route to an OT win. BETBOOM had series point on this map, hitting 12 first, but G2 held strong on their defence to force it into OT and give NertZ just a little bit more time to finish off BB.
Once it hit OT, they were unstoppable, and it felt like a sliding doors moment for the series, that missed series point - and so it proved.
Ancient was the decider, but a re-energised G2 continued their form from the OT of Anubis to race out of the blocks and though often the rounds weren't perfect, and the half, economically, as held together with tape at times, G2 found enough strength to grab a four round lead.
The Israeli duo of HeavyGod and NertZ just felt like they had plot armour at times, and no matter what went wrong they came up smelling of roses.
This was the only big lead of the day that never really seemed in doubt - even knowing G2 - and this was a clean close out for the grand final spot.
