Ninjas in Pyjamas ease past the group stage winning against Mousesports and 3DMAX for the first place.
The initial match of the group B featured Ninjas in Pyjamas and Mousesports. NiP has just returned from the United States where they had an impressive run at MLG X Games finishing second, while on the other side Mousesports had a roster change at the start of 2015 and they are still searching for their form. The map was de_cache where the Germans had a slight advantage starting on the CT side. However, the Sweedes started off extremely well, knocking down mousesports' defense and winning 10 rounds on the T side. This was enough to just slowly close this match with 16-6 and move on to the winner's match.
The second opening match of the group B saw Titan fighting 3DMAX which players were a runner-ups at ASUS ROG Summer last year. Titan won a pistol round and started off this match in a nice way since they were at CT side. However, the Finish team was just waiting for the first full buy round to start making issues to the French defense. allu was on fire hitting some insane shots with AWP and clutching very important rounds for 3DMAX on T side. In the end they won 7 rounds in the first half which was a really good result. The second half saw a somehow balanced match where the CT advantage was in 3DMAX's favor and they scored their first win here on the wings of the home crowd.
The winners match between 3DMAX and NiP was played on de_nuke. This map is known as one of NiP's statistically best maps so it was kind of a surprise to see the Finish team not banning this one. NiP won a knife round and kicked off at CT side by pocketing a pistol round as well. It just felt that 3DMAX were so close many times to clutch a round but in the end NiP prevailed so the half time score was 13-2 for the Sweedes which was a huge advantage going into the second half. NiP won the second pistol round as well and it was just an easy closure to this match.
The closing match of the day one was played on de_cache. Cache is known for being a CT sided map, however those two teams have twisted it around and made it a totally T sided game. 3DMAX started first by winning round after round on T side collecting a total of nine rounds. At this point it was looking like they have the game already in their pocket. However, Titan woke up in the second half and they were even more dominant than 3DMAX was, winning ten rounds at T side to make it 16-12 for them. Titan is the last qualified team for the playoffs, while 3DMAX is eliminated from the tournament.
Ninjas in Pyjamas continues with the great results.
In the losers match we could see Mousesports and Titan fighting for the survival, as the loser of this match is being eliminated from the tournament. de_dust2 was picked and the start brought us an even game which was going back and forth where, in the end, Titan pulled it through for the 10-5. The second half was completely dominated by the French team and mousesports got sent packing home.
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