July 16, 7 p.m.

The second match of the second matchday of the IEM Cologne knockout round, Faze atus Vincere.

The audience may prefer to see a close match than a one-sided game, and the ups and downs are always more exciting than crushing all the way.

Of course, these two teams naturally lived up to the expectations of the audience and filled the entire BO3 perfectly.

The first map is the death amusement park chosen by NAVI, and the attacker's NAVI got off to a smooth start, but was soon returned by Faze in the later spear round, playing a wave of Perfect.

In the rest of the first half, no team could dominate the field, and the two sides fell into the rhythm of back-and-forth to score points, but NAVI's familiarity with Death Park was still slightly better, and he nibbled on 8 points in the first half with the attacker first, taking a one-point lead.

In the second half, the advantage of the CT chart began to show, even if Faze won the pistol game, it was still difficult to tear through NAVI's defense, and NAVI successfully fixed the score of the first picture at 16-12.

However, just when the situation of Faze was in danger, the resilience of the Galaxy Battleship was once again shown in front of all the audience, and with two consecutive 16-14, it won the victory of Purgatory Town and Nuclear Crisis with difficulty, and also got the last ticket to the finals.

And this final, but it is different from the past, Faze, who was once favored in the past, but this time few analysts or commentators will favor it.

Even on the handicap of a certain peripheral spinach, Faze was once offered odds of three to one to win the championship.

The reason is simple, Faze will face the opponent in the final is Vitality, who is in full swing.

The newly crowned king of BLAST Lisbon has not lost a single map in the group stage of IEM Cologne so far, and his opponents have averaged less than 10 points per map, and Vitality won the game almost smoothly and made it all the way to the final.

With the introduction of Aether, the French veteran team seems to have been reborn, forming a special system that is unique to Vitality with the blessing of two talented snipers.

Faze, on the other hand, although he won 2-0 before the semi-finals, the game process of each map was a bit bumpy, and even against a third-tier team like 00Nation, he did not say that he would solve the opponent neatly.

However, this did not affect the readiness of the Vitality team.

From Zonic to Team Leader, everyone knows how resilient and terrifying Faze is a team.

In all the recent offline competitions, as long as Faze made it to the final stage of the competition, the international column won the final championship without exception.

Tomorrow is the final showdown with Faze, and of course everyone will not let up, and the wise saying "Forget for a while, make a mistake" is deeply imprinted in the DNA of every contestant.

After watching the BO3 of FaZe and NAVI, the Vitality team left the main stage of the LANXESS Arena and boarded the bus to the hotel provided by the organizer.

"Tomorrow is the final of IEM Cologne, and it's hard to imagine that we are on the stage of the final of a world-class competition so quickly."

apEX hugged Qin Feng's shoulders and felt that his body was light and fluttering, as if he was in a dream.

Before Qin Feng came to Vitality, it seemed that Vitality hadn't won a major competition for a long, long time. The last championship of the little bees seems to be going back to the IEM Winter 2021.

"Really, I heard that next year's first Major will be held in Paris, France, maybe we can lift the trophy at home stadium." apEX envisions a bright future.

Qin Feng let out a "hmm" and looked out the window of the bus, the bright stars were particularly eye-catching against the dark night sky.

"Let's think about the IEM finals and the Rio Major first." Zonic in the back seat coughed lightly, "Don't think too much, it's not a good habit to open champagne at half time, and no one knows what the future holds." ”

Speaking of this, Zonic suddenly changed his words, "But there is no need to have too much pressure, we have been able to go all the way to this point has already shown our strength." The more we don't have a mental pressure, the better we play. ”

When everyone returned to the hotel, it was already more than ten o'clock in the evening local time in Cologne, and of course it was impossible for the Vitality people to continue training, but held a meeting to discuss the strategy of dealing with Faze.

"First of all, the long game of BO5 is not very advantageous for us, and you must know that none of Faze's recent BO5 games have ended in defeat." Zonic opened the small notebook in his hand, frowning slightly.

"Secondly, when we fight Faze, we have to let Aether take on a certain amount of command tasks, and let Aether try the position of the free man first on the first map if he can."

"There's not much to say about the map, and the two maps that have been removed from the BO5 game are definitely the Ancient Ruins and the Mansion of the Dead."

"Oh, and it's worth noting that Faze hasn't had a significant shortcoming in all of the recent tournaments." Zonic licked his somewhat dry lips, "Even the big cousin who people have the impression of not having strong marksmanship has stood up in critical endgames many times. ”

"So when we attack, we don't need to consider Faze's defensive shortcomings, but more about the situation on the field and Faze's habit of keeping points."

"The analyst has printed out Faze's position analysis and defensive holes for everyone, and it is placed on the computer desk in the training room."

"Of course, there is only one thing that matters." Zonic paused and said in a deep voice, "That is to limit the personnel who Faze can get information, especially Ran's command idea, if Faze is allowed to get a lot of information in the middle of the game, then it will be quite difficult for us to attack or defend." ”

"Whether we can win tomorrow's game depends on everyone's performance, and the other half depends on whether we can gain an advantage in the competition of control maps."

“……”

The next afternoon, at 3 p.m. local time in Cologne.

Before the Vitality vs. Faze match even began, many communities began to discuss the two finalists.

From HLTV to Reddit, MAX+ to the Perfect Esports App, most of the CSGO board is occupied by discussions about the finals.

Of course, thanks to the fact that a certain CIS team did not make it to the finals, most of the posts did not contain rhythmic content, which made the management of the forum a lot easier.

Vitality is on the rise, but Faze is by no means a team to be underestimated.

"This A god, Vitality is absolutely true core, right? ZywO lost, Aether has been above 1.3 since the group stage. ”

"Normal, basic operation only. However, Aether brought Vitality to life makes me look forward to G2, I heard that G2 is going to recruit HooXi and jks, I don't know if the new commander Breath Brother can revitalize G2. ”

"Damn, G2 fans are so bitter, it's been almost 1,000 days, right? G2 doesn't seem to have won an official competition in three years, do you know how I've spent the past three years?! ”

"Actually, I feel that the game of BO5 is still Faze has an advantage, yesterday I let one chase two to win NAVI, and the momentum is obviously up, looking forward to the return of the gods of the first-hand galaxy battleship."

“……”