Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
Virtus.pro and Monte each won decider matches on Sunday to stay alive and make the playoffs in the Thunderpick World Championship.
Virtus.pro defeated Fnatic 2-1 in Group A, while Monte shut out SAW 2-0 in Group B play.
They joined Cloud9 and FaZe Clan, winners Saturday, as playoff participants. Fnatic and SAW were eliminated.
Meanwhile, Group C got underway Sunday as well. MOUZ defeated M80 2-0 while Team Spirit likewise swept its opponent, Complexity, 2-0.
Sixteen teams were divided into four double-elimination groups of four at the $500,000 event. The top two teams from each group will advance to the playoffs, a single-elimination bracket that concludes Nov. 5. All matches are best-of-three.
Virtus.pro led things off with a 13-2 win on Overpass before Fnatic rallied to force a third game with a 22-20 marathon victory on Inferno. VP closed out the match by winning 13-10 on Ancient.
All five of the Russian-based VP starting players finished with positive kills-to-deaths ratios, led by Petr “fame” Bolyshev at plus-20 (71 kills) and Dzhami “Jame” Ali at plus-19 (57 kills). Sweden’s Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson led fnatic with a 61-51 K-D ratio.
Portugal-based SAW pushed Monte in both games, but still fell 13-10 on Vertigo and 13-9 on Anubis for the sweep.
Four of five players finished with positive K-D ratios for Monte, with Ukraine’s Volodymyr “Woro2k” Veletniuk standing out with a plus-19 ratio (45-26). Joao “story” Vieira paced the losing side at plus-7 (40 kills).
Spirit crushed Complexity 13-3 on Anubis before wrapping up the overall win 13-10 on Nuke. Danil “donk” Kryshkovets of Russia starred with a plus-24 differential (45-21).
MOUZ took out M80 13-7 on Ancient and 13-11 on Vertigo. Hungary’s Adam “torzsi” Torzsas paced the winners with 39 kills (plus-16).
Group stage action continues Monday with four matches:
–Complexity vs. M80 (Group C elimination match)
–Team Spirit vs. MOUZ (Group C winners match)
–Heroic vs. Nouns Esports (Group D opening match)
–FURIA Esports vs. BIG (Group D opening match)
Group stage standings (W-L, point differential):
Group A
1. Cloud9, 2-0, plus-10
2. Virtus.pro, 2-1, plus-16
3. Fnatic, 1-2, minus-9 (eliminated)
4. Ninjas in Pyjamas, 0-2, minus-17 (eliminated)
Group B
1. FaZe Clan, 2-0, plus-23
2. Monte, 2-1, plus-16
3. SAW, 1-2, minus-9 (eliminated)
4. Wildcard Gaming, 0-2, minus-30 (eliminated)
Group C
T1. MOUZ, 1-0, plus-8
T1. Team Spirit, 1-0, plus-13
T3. Complexity, 0-1, minus-13
T3. M80, 0-1, minus-8
–Field Level Media