NIP and PARIVISION sent home early as Falcons make playoffs - Thunderpick World Championship
NIP and PARIVISION were removed from the competition on day two as both fell flat.
NIP dropped out as Aurora coasted to a pretty simple 2-0 with the old duo of XANTARES and Wicadia putting up numbers, which must be encouraging. Far too often recently it's been Jimpphat tasked with carrying the team from less advantageous positions, but to see the star duo turn up and crush the underdog is a good sign for the future.
However, it is only NIP - and with stavn having very little impact on the AWP, it made for quite a simple game. Your sniper only getting four kills on Dust 2 of all maps means you're pretty much never going to win the game.
Wicadia and XANTARES combined for over 10 times his kills (and 25x his kills in the first half - he had just one) as Aurora ran rampant on the T side and put the game out of site at the half on map two.
Wicadia was similarly dominant on Cache with 23 kills, seemingly just finding one or two in every important round. woxic had a memorable 4k in the first half, but Wicadia was far more quietly collecting lots and lots of kills over the length of the map.
Aurora were never truly in danger, and NIP are going back home.
BETBOOM sent PARIVISION home in the clash of the all-caps Russian teams, as BB reverse swept them in relatively easy fashion.
PARIVISION won map one, Ancient, off the back of xiELO dropping 26 and over 100 ADR to come back from a 4-8 deficit at the half to win 13-10. 19 of xiELO's kills came in those 11 CT rounds, including three triple kills in the space of five rounds. A ridiculous performance.
He couldn't repeat the trick as BB went up 10-2 this time on Anubis, with PARIVISION disappearing entirely. PARI's top fragger had as many kills as BB's bottom fragger - it was one of those maps.
That led us to Mirage, which was similarly anti-climactic. zorte and d1ledez piled on the pain as PARIVISION seemed to lose every 3v3 and 2v2 situation and collapse to a pretty disappointing loss. They deserved to go out, quite frankly, but they continue to baffle. We have no idea how good they are, and we wouldn't have it any other way.
FURIA got one back as they beat Legacy in a bit of a grudge match to claim a playoffs berth.
Legacy had won the last two match-ups between the two, but FURIA stumbled on the final map before regaining their feet and closing out Mirage thanks to a crucial FalleN 1v2. Two Legacy players lined up and FalleN sprayed them down to put FURIA on 12 and drive a stake through Legacy's heart as it started to beat once more.
Legacy took Cache to open the series with dumau going absolutely bonkers, but Legacy never found a stand-out performance in the next two while KSCERATO slowly but surely choked them out. He was fantastic, as he always is, on both maps to grant FURIA a much-needed win. He just never seems to make errors, and picks up double kills when FURIA need them; not least in the final round of the game, where he sprayed down two as Legacy streamed up short.
Legacy aren't out, and will be eyeing a rematch in the final if they can go on and win the rest of their games - while FURIA have a shot at winning the whole thing, and will feel they have to.
Falcons pushed past 9z to go straight into playoffs in an entertaining series.
NiKo went from zero to hero with a pretty shocking performance on Nuke (despite Falcons winning) to being very important in closing out Dust 2 after an 8-4 start. He grabbed over a kill per round on the CT side as 9z looked to mount a comeback to ensure it didn't get out of hand.
TeSeS was consistent throughout the series and was a key part of both map wins too, with 9z's win coming off the back of a luchov carry job. He went missing on Dust 2, but without his 24-11 on Mirage there never would have been a Dust 2.
Falcons aren't in top gear just yet, but they're in the playoffs without needing to be.
