FaZe and Vitality battled for a spot in the playoffs in the last two matches of the first day at IEM Dallas, while Astralis faced up against Encore to escape elimination.
Vitality tried their best in the upper bracket semi-finals, but lost 0-2 to the Major champions. The match wasn’t even a close one with scores of 11-16 on Dust2, and 6-16 on Nuke.
FaZe has clinched a playoff position, whilst Vitality has been relegated to the bottom group, where they will face MOUZ for survival at the tournament in Texas.
In the other game, Astralis defeated the Oceanic representatives Encore ESC (16-3 Vertigo, 16-9 Nuke) to stay alive in the bottom bracket.
Let’s take a look at what happened in the Group A matches previously, and who may win the upcoming matches.
Schedule & Betting odds
Below are the current predictions for the upcoming matches. Teams that are highlighted in bold have the odds in their favour. You can click on the date/time to take yourself directly to the detailed match page, and live bet whilst the matches play out.
You can always visit luckbox.com to watch your favourite team’s matches and bet live.
Group A
Upper Bracket Round 3
- FaZe vs.ENCE (June 1, 2022 - 21:30 CEST) 1.30 vs. 3.20
Lower Bracket Round 2
- G2 vs. Astralis (June 1, 2022 - 01:00 CEST) 1.48 vs. 2.50
- Vitality vs. MOUZ (May 31, 2022 - 21:30 CEST) 1.45 vs. 2.60
What to watch?
The game featuring Vitality and FaZe began with the French-Danish mix's selection of Dust2. Vitality's T side started off well, building a 7-5 lead, but they finished the first half of the map being one round down. The FaZe offensive proved far too powerful once the teams switched, and Vitality were unable to halt the onslaught.
Moving on to Nuke, FaZe were considerably more in command, holding a 9-6 Terrorist edge. The Norwegian MVP rain ramped up on the Counter-Terrorist side for FaZe once again, scoring 12 frags in the second half to help his team seal the map 16-10 and secure a berth in the playoffs.
The destiny of two teams were determined as ENCE defeated G2 in the upper-bracket semi-finals to earn a spot in the playoffs at IEM Dallas. ENCE has not yet reached the end of the road in the group stage, as they still have the upper bracket final vs FaZe to play.
We wrote before that if there’s one team that can stop FaZe, it’s ENCE. They are currently ranked 3rd in HLTV’s World Rankings and certainly have the skill set to do so. But this year FaZe is simply just another level where they top off the behemoth NAVI with ease over and over. It is certain that it’s not luck at this point.
Ence has a stand-in in their roster attending IEM Dallas, with the stand-in being none other than the legendary pro Snax. So maybe, just maybe… ENCE can pull this off. It will be an incredible change of course for the contemporary CS:GO esports scene.
As the lower bracket matches go, MOUZ and Astralis really stand little chance against their opponents. But both will give their all to stay in the tournament. Astralis to keep their name alive, and Vitality to make up for their poor performance compared to its peers in PGL Antwerp.
