A massive upset rocked the brackets as the eight teams fought it out to advance to tomorrow's semifinals.
Anything can happen in Overwatch, but rarely is it this unexpected: arguably one of the top three teams in North America, Immortals, fell to the lowest-seeded team in the tournament, CLG, in a slugfest that went down to the wire. Cloud9 and NRG also battled it out for a semifinal spot, while Splyce and LG Evil, and Rise Nation and FaZe Clan also went head to head to see who would advance.
Miss anything? Don't worry, we've got you covered with the recaps below.
Cloud9 vs NRG - Cloud9 wins, 3-1
Cloud9 started off with a very strong 3-0 win on Oasis, thanks in part to Surefour's fantastic Pharah play. NRG bounced back considerably in Numbani, however, being able to take the map with three minutes on the clock. Cloud9 wasn't even able to finish the map thanks to NRG's superior teamplay, tying up the match 1-1.
With the teams sharing the first two match points, Watchpoint Gibraltar served as almost of a reset for the two teams. Surefour's Widowmaker shut down NRG for the first point, putting very strong suppression on NRG to give Cloud9 the second point. His move to Genji renewed his high-impact on the map, with NRG being stuck inside the spawn while Cloud9 completeled thje map with three minutes left on the clock. IDDQD tried to replicate what Surefour was doing on Widowmaker, though with limited success at first moving into their Attack phase. Once they hit carwash, however, IDDQD started to produce the crucial kills that allowed NRG to capture their first point. IDDQD was eventually shutdown, however, along with his entire team, thanks in part to Selly's amazing quad-kill Tactical Visor that help off NRG long enough for Cloud9 to take the map.
Illos was a Battle of the Widowmakers at the start, but Roolf's Discord Orbs gave Surefour the edge, softening up NRG for them to take the first point. Surefour replaced his sniper rifle for a Pharah's rocket launcher, having just as major of an impact on Well to bring Cloud9 an early lead. However, NRG's Harbleu and Ube were able to use their ultimates to their advantage, allowing their Self-Destruct and Rocket Barrages to give NRG the space needed to hold to Overtime. A clutch resurrection by Dummy allowed NRG to keep fighting when they should have conceded the point, and then Surefour flying too far from the point gave NRG their first point of the map. NRG had a chance to take thge point late into Cloud9's push on Lighthouse, but Cloud9 was simply able to back each other up better than NRG could: when Surefour's Pharah fell, Shelly's Soldier: 76 picked up the slack. When he fell, a swift resurrection from Adam brought Cloud9 the opprotunity they needed to get them back into the game. It was that sort of support - plus Surefour's fantastic Widow and Shelly's take-no-prisoners Tracer - that brought NRG to its knees and resulted in them being the first team to be eliminated from the tournament, 3-1.
Immortals vs CLG - CLG wins, 2-3
CLG's very aggressive start on Eichenwalde allowed them to get ahead of Immortals early, then were able to keep Immortals at bay to win the first map. CLG once again went aggressive, targetting Verbo long enough to put a dent into Immortal's healing and resulting in the team losing fight after fight, shockingly full holding Immortals on Numbani. CLG took 33% within two minutes of their attack team, giving them what they needed to win the map and put Immortals in danger of being eliminated from the tournament without winning a single map.
Lijang saw Immortals starting to wake up, with Grimreality and Agilities getting hits that they needed, but Waffletastic and Hydration were once again shutting down Immortal's supports to bring Immortals to their knees. Though they were able to get to Overtime in Garden, Immortals fought back on Night Market to take the first round of the map. Control Center was the battle of the Tracer's, with Grimreality being able to Blink around the map with little problems and Waffletastic being able to pick up Aythen and Verbo when needed. Eventually, Grim's being able to attack with little consequence caused IMT to pick up Control Tower and tie up the map 2-2. Immortals finally hit their stride then, with the team shutting down CLG's PharMercy combo to take Lijang in a very close 3-2.
Hollywood fed further into the reverse sweep hype, with Immortals being able to take CLG to a fifth and final map. Despite some fantastic Self-Destructs from Miso, it was Hyped's D.va that was able to be more impactful overall, resulting in Immortals taking Hollywood. The reverse sweep push finally came to an end on Temple of Anubis, thanks in part to Hydration's fantastic Pharah play that allowed Verbo to have limited impact for Immortals. With Verbo effectively shut down, CLG cleared the way to their victory in a massive upset, 2-3.
Rise Nation vs FaZe Clan - Rise wins, 3-1
Oasis was defined by wether or not FaZe Clan's Rawkus could pull off a Resurrection in key instances. Rise Nation's Xretzi secured the first round of Oasis for his team when he took down a Ressurection-ready Rawkus, which put Rise ahead by one. The next two rounds went FaZe's way - thanks in part to Rawkus being able to pull of a two-man Resurrection in Overtime to secure Garden for FaZe in the third round - resulting in FaZe being up by one in the replay of City Center. With a little help from Phaz, Xretzi was Rawkus' Kryptonite once again, with Rawkus' Resurrection being essentially wasted thanks to Xretzi and the rest of Rise quickly cleaning up Rise immediately afterwards. FaZe sealed the deal once Mikeya and Zombs were able to clean up Rise on the second runthrough of Garden, allowing for FaZe to take the first map in a 2-3 score.
Eichenwalde started out with Rise on Attack and finished with a surprise Reaper from Spirit, who pulled a triple kill to secure the map with 2:27 left on the clock. Spirit came in clutch for defense as well, being able to shut down FaZe with one click of his Roadhog's alternate fire, giving Rise the advantage for most of the first phase. FaZe had to use all four of the banked ultimates they had - Tactical Visor, Dragon Blade, Transcendance and Sound Barrier - to allow FaZe their first point. Xretzi and Desro were able to counter the majority of what FaZe could do, resulting in FaZe having to complete most of the second phase with less than a minute left. It would prove to be an impossible feat, with Rise taking the second map of the match soon afterwards.
Another Iilos map allowed for the second Widowmaker matchup of the night, with Rise's Xretzi facing off against FaZe's Zombs. Though Xretzi had the first win, getting a nice grapple kill on Zombs, FaZe was ultimately the winner of both that battle and the map, since Xretzi was constantly being shut down and ultimately couldn't make the impact needed for his team to win. Lijang had a similar feel, only this time ShaDowBurn and Spirit going head to head. This was a bit more decisively FaZe's win, thanks in part to ShaDowBurn going off as Genji. With a final Graviton Surge from Midnight, Rise was able to take out FaZe, coming out on top with a 1-3 win.
Splyce vs LG Evil - LG Evil wins, 1-3
The two shared the first two maps - Lijang going to LG Evil, Watchpoint: Gibraltar going to Splyce - which allowed Nepal to be the go-ahead map. The two shared the first two rounds of Nepal before Jake and Train were able to lead LG Evil to pull away from Splyce on Sanctum. Despite some very strong Genji work by Graceful on Village, it wasn't enough to overtake Super and Train to bring the map back into Splyce's favor, handing Nepal over to LG Evil in a 1-3 score.
Eichenwalde started with LG Evil in the corridor right next to the point in an attempt to bait Splyce into the area that LG Evil plays the strongest - and where the healers could consentrate their heals - which proved to be effective for most of Splyce's first push. In the end, though, LG Evil failed to get on the point at the last second, resulting in Splyce getting their first point in Overtime. The second leg of Splyce's attack run ended the opposite way, with Splyce not being able to stay on the payload in Overtime thanks to a charge from Super and a few missteps from Mykl and other players. LG Evil gave up the first point with relatively no issue, thanks to LG Evil's unusual flank around the back of the point to give LG Evil the chance to attack from a weird side. LG Evil had over four minutes to get the the Yellow Box of Victory, right before the castle gates. Thanks to Graceful being blocked access to the Payload by Train, LG Evil was able to take out Splyce with a 1-3 final score.
The action continues tomorrow with Cloud9 facing off against underdogs CLG while Rise Nation will take on LG Evil in the semifinals. The winners of that will go on to play in the Grand Finals tomorrow as well. Be sure to tune in to CyberPower Gaming's Twitch to see it all live, starting at 6 PM CEST / 12:00 PM EST.
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