FaZe Clan and MOUZ posted 2-1 victories on Saturday to advance to Sunday’s grand final at the $250,000 IEM Chengdu event in China.
MOUZ defeated G2 Esports in the first semifinal before FaZe Clan took down Astralis.
The MOUZ-FaZe Clan winner will earn $100,000 and 1,400 BLAST Premier points plus an automatic qualification to IEM Cologne 2024.
G2 Esports and Astralis each took home $20,000 and 600 BLAST Premier points for finishing in third-fourth place.
MOUZ sandwiched a 13-8 win on Nuke and a 13-10 victory on Overpass around G2 Esports’ 13-7 triumph on Ancient. Finland’s Jimi “Jimpphat” Salo powered MOUZ with 51 kills and a plus-15 kills-deaths differential, offsetting the 53 kills and plus-16 differential posted by G2’s Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov of Russia.
FaZe Clan won in similar fashion, opening with a 13-10 win on Nuke and closing with a 13-7 triumph on Inferno after Astralis’ earned a 13-5 victory on Ancient. Latvia’s Helvijs “broky” Saukants led the way with 49 kills and a plus-15 K-D differential, while Astralis got 41 kills from Alexander “br0” Bro and a plus-1 differential from fellow Dane Jakob “jabbi” Nygaard.
The CS2 tournament began Monday with 16 teams vying for a share of the prize pool. All matches in the single-elimination playoffs are best-of-three, including Sunday’s grand final.
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 — G2 Esports, Astralis
5-6. $10,000, 400 BLAST Premier points — Virtus.pro, Team Liquid
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