Natus Vincere and FaZe Clan will meet Sunday in the finals of the Intel Extreme Masters Season XVII in Cologne, Germany.
Both squads swept their opponents 2-0 in Saturday’s semifinals.
NaVi took out Astralis with a 16-8 win on Nuke, followed by a 19-17 triumph on Mirage. Leading the team were Ukrainians Valeriy “b1t” Vakhovskiy, who had 54 kills and a plus-16 kills-to-deaths differential, and Aleksandr “s1mple ” Kostyliev with 49 kills and a plus-14.
FaZe Clan started with a 16-12 win on Ancient and scored nine of the final 10 points to take a 16-9 victory on Nuke and eliminate Movistar Riders. Robin “ropz” Kool of Estonia tallied a team-leading 38 kills with a plus-14 differential.
The $1 million IEM Cologne event began with 24 teams, with 16 advancing from the Play-In to the Group Stage. The top six teams qualified for the Playoff Stage. The initial playoff matches were best-of-three, but Sunday’s grand final will be best-of-five.
Intel Extreme Masters Season XVII — Cologne prize pool and points distribution:
1. $400,000, 3,200 BLAST Premier points
2. $180,000, 1,600 BLAST Premier points
3-4. $80,000, 1,000 BLAST Premier points — Astralis, Movistar Riders
5-6. $40,000, 300 BLAST Premier points — MOUZ, Team Liquid
7-8. $24,000, 300 BLAST Premier points — Ninjas in Pyjamas, FURIA Esports
9-12. $16,000, no BLAST Premier points — Team Vitality, G2 Esports, Cloud9, Team Spirit
13-16. $10,000, no BLAST Premier points — Heroic, ENCE, 00 Nation, Outsiders
17-20. $4,500, no BLAST Premier points — Sprout, BIG, Imperial Esports, TYLOO
21-24. $2,500, no BLAST Premier points — paiN Gaming, Complexity Gaming, ORDER, MIBR
–Field Level Media