MOUZ and Astralis won their respective groups Wednesday and advanced directly to the playoff semifinals at the IEM Chengdu event in China.
MOUZ swept Team Liquid in the Group A upper bracket final and Astralis posted a 2-0 win against Virtus.pro in the Group B upper bracket final.
Liquid and VP advanced to the quarterfinals as group runners-up, where they were joined by G2 Esports and FaZe Clan. G2 swept Heroic and FaZe Clan swept FlyQuest in the lower bracket finals in Groups A and B, respectively.
The CS2 tournament began Monday with 16 teams in two groups vying for a share of the $250,000 prize pool. Six teams remain with all matches in the single-elimination playoffs best-of-three, including Sunday’s grand final.
MOUZ defeated Liquid 13-11 on Inferno and 13-6 on Mirage. Finland’s Jimi “Jimpphat” Salo led MOUZ with 41 kills and a plus-18 kills-deaths differential.
Astralis beat VP 13-6 on Overpass and 13-7 on Vertigo. Jakob “jabbi” Nygaard had 37 kills and fellow Dane Martin “stavn” Lund paced the winners with a plus-18 differential.
G2 had their hands full with HEROIC, winning 13-10 on Ancient and 16-13 on Nuke. Russia’s Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov fueled the victory with 47 kills and a plus-20 differential.
FaZe Clan eliminated FlyQuest with a 13-4 win on Ancient and a 13-10 victory on Nuke. Leading the way was David “frozen” Cernansky of Slovakia with 44 kills and a plus-21 K-D differential.
Playoff action begins Friday with two quarterfinal matches:
Virtus.pro vs. G2 Esports
Team Liquid vs. FaZe Clan
IEG Chengdu prize pool:
1. $100,000, 1,400 BLAST Premier points, qualification to IEM Cologne 2024
2. 42,000, 1,000 BLAST Premier points
3-4. $20,000, 600 BLAST Premier points
5-6. $10,000, 400 BLAST Premier points
7-8. $6,000, 300 BLAST Premier points — HEROIC, FlyQuest
9-12. $5,000 — FURIA Esports, Lynn Vision Gaming, Nemiga Gaming, Cloud9
13-16. $4,000 — 9x Team, TYLOO, Steel Helmet, Wildcard Gaming
–Field Level Media