G2 Esports and Heroic each recorded sweeps on Saturday to advance to the grand final of the Intel Extreme Masters event in Katowice, Poland.
G2 dispatched Team Liquid after posting a 16-10 win on Anubis, thanks to a map-ending 9- run, and 16-11 victory on Inferno.
Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Nemanja “huNter-” Kovac had 49 kills and a plus-15 kills-to-deaths differential to pace G2, which will face Heroic on Sunday.
Latvia’s Mareks “YEKINDAR” Galinskis and Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski each had 38 kills for Liquid.
Heroic toppled Natus Vincere after securing 16-8 wins on Inferno and Mirage.
Rene “TeSeS” Madsen had 44 kills and countryman Jakob “jabbi” Nygaard had a plus-14 K/D differential for the all-Denmark Heroic team.
Russian Ilya “Perfecto” Zalutskiy collected 40 kills and a plus-7 K/D differential for NaVi.
The $1 million Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament began Feb. 1 with the 16-team, double-elimination play-in stage to determine the final eight spots in the group stage. First-round play-in matches consisted of a single map, while all other play-in matches were best-of-three.
Group play ran from Saturday through Tuesday, with two eight-team groups competing in a double-elimination format of best-of-three matches. The two group winners, G2 and Heroic, advanced to the semifinals of the single-elimination playoffs. The runners-up in each group, NaVi and Vitality, went to the playoff quarterfinals as high seeds, and the third-place teams, Liquid and Outsiders, made the quarterfinals as low seeds.
The winner of the best-of-five grand final on Sunday will earn $400,000 and a berth in the $1 million IEM Cologne event scheduled for July 25-Aug. 6 in Germany.
Intel Extreme Masters Katowice prize pool:
1. $400,000, berth in IEM Cologne
2. $180,000
3-4. $80,000 — Team Liquid, Natus Vincere
5-6. $40,000 — Team Vitality, Outsiders
7-8. $24,000 — FaZe Clan, Complexity Gaming
9-12. $16,000 — IHC Esports, Team Spirit, Fnatic, OG
13-16. $10,000 — Cloud9, BIG, MOUZ, Ninjas in Pyjamas
17-20. $4,500 — ENCE, Sprout, MIBR, FURIA Esports
21-24. $2,500 — Permitta Esports, Evil Geniuses, Grayhound Gaming, paiN Gaming
–Field Level Media