Team Vitality, meanwhile, overcame Outsiders to book a place to meet G2 Esports.
A big shock in the CS:GO scene was seen in Malta. The last pair of the quarter-finals were played, where it was the matches of Team Vitality vs Outsiders and G2 Esports vs Natus Vincere. The matches will decide which two teams will head into the semi-finals on the road to the Grand Finals over the weekend.
Team Vitality
vs
Outsiders
This match is one of the rare plays in the playoffs so far, as it is one of the few that wasn’t played to the full three rounds. The series started on Mirage, where right out of the gate Vitality clearly showed they are the superior team with a string of wins from round one all the way to round eight where Outsiders finally managed to grab a win. Even so, Vitality ended the first half with a comfortable five-point lead. In the second half, Outsiders tried to mount an offensive against Vitality – and even managed to close the points gap between the two teams, but unfortunately, the match was over by round 29, where Team Vitality won 16-13.
The classic Dust2 saw the two teams play to keep themselves in the race. The first half saw Vitality mainly keeping the narrative and ended with a three-point lead before the swap. In the second half, it was the Outsiders turn to hold the steering wheel and tied the map by round 30 – which in turn called for the first overtime in the playoffs stage. Team Vitality seemed to pull out some reserve energy from somewhere and proceeded to overcome Outsiders to come ahead on the map. Zywoo secured the win via a 4-kill in the last round to end the game with a score of 19-17.
G2 Esports
vs
Natus Vincere
The match began on Dust2, where G2 Esports took the lead in the opening rounds with a couple of wins. NAVI looked to be overwhelmed in some parts of the match as they struggled to catch up to G2 Esports, and we saw the first half end with a three-point advantage for G2. The second half though is where NAVI seemed to wake up and immediately went on the offensive – not giving G2 a chance to take a breather. They caught up by round 20, and by round 29 the match ended with the win for NAVI, 16-13.
G2, undeterred from the loss on the first map trucked on, and this showed dividends as they easily replicated the three-point lead in this first half on Inferno. The difference this time is that they continued to carry the momentum and proceeded to win the second map, 16-9.
Mirage was more or less the same as Inferno; while NAVI managed to win the first three rounds, G2 Esports easily caught up and surpassed them – and eventually ended the first half with a five-point lead. There was a measure of opposition in the second half by NAVI, but G2 was too far ahead that the match ended by round 24, with a score of 16-9.
Unfortunately, the match between G2 Esports and NAVI was again plagued by the cyberattacks that hit the Heroic vs NAVI match earlier – ESL moved the players to anonymous accounts to circumvent the problem.
Team Vitality will meet up with G2 Esports in the semi-finals where they will be battling to see who will move to the Grand Final this Sunday.
