SAW and The MongolZ, who qualified for the IEM Cologne 2024 playoffs after a sensational win over G2 and Spirit, played in the legendary LANXESS arena.
Pre-match facts
For the teams this will be the second meeting at this tournament only in the Play-In stage. The first time was won by SAW with a 2-1 score on the cards. That time SAW sent The Mongolz to the bottom of the grid, from where they still managed to qualify for the tournament.
If you compare the maps of the last game and this one, the difference was that SAW changed their map choice and chose Nuke, while Anubis, which was their past choice became the third.
Match details
The first map of the match was Ancient, the choice of The MongolZ, who started the map confidently, winning the first half with a comfortable 8-4 score. The second half was absolutely mirrored and ended with the same score of 8-4, but in favor of SAW, securing the map for extra rounds. The MongolZ were stronger in the extra rounds, finishing the map with a score of 16-13.
The second map was Nuke, where they showed their skills and closed the half with a score of 7-5 in their favor. In the second half, they played even better and ran over their opponent with a score of 6-2 for the half and 13-7 for the map.
The final one was Anubis, where SAW started confidently behind the attack and crushingly ended the half 9-3 in their favor. But after a winning pistol round from The MongolZ, they started to get back into the game, bringing the game to a score of 10-11 in their favor, but gave away important rounds and lost by a score of 13-10.
Fact after making it to the playoffs
After the win SAW, not only made it to LANXESS arena and the playoffs, but became the first Portuguese team to make it to the playoffs of a major tournament in history. Before that, only fox and JUST had that title.
READ MORE: Brollan: "Our goal is to win in Cologne".
Best Player of the Match
The best player of the match was Michel "ewjerkz" Magalhães, who had a great series. He finished the game with a rating of 7.3 and a 61-52 K/D statistic.
Next matchup
With the win, SAW secured a playoff spot in the tournament, but will play against NAVI for seeding. The Mongolz, in turn, fall to the bottom seed, where they need to win two matches to advance to the arena.
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