FURIA are the first Brazilian team through IEM Rio Major in the Americas Regional Major Ranking (RMR). The squad led by Andrei “arT” Piovezan defeated their fellow Brazilian rivals of paiN Gaming 2-0 today to secure a spot in the Challengers Stage of the first Valve-sponsored CS:GO event held in Brazil.
The teams met in the 2-1 pool of the Swiss system and although paiN had been impressing in the past months while FURIA showed some signs of struggle to keep playing with their known aggressive style, paiN saw FURIA dominate most part of the series, especially in the first map Nuke (16-8).
The second map, Vertigo, was back-and-forth but FURIA ran away with a 16-13 victory to qualify for IEM Rio Major. It wasn’t only that FURIA displayed a better game plan today, all of their players finished with a positive rating as well, while all of the paiN players accrued more deaths than frags throughout the series.
There was a huge pressure on FURIA’s shoulders to qualify for IEM Rio Major due to them being the best Brazilian CS:GO team in recent years. ArT said in the post-match interview that the feeling is amazing and that they have fulfilled their objective to qualify and play the Major on home soil in front of the Brazilian fans.
There are only two IEM Rio Major spots up for grabs in Americas RMR now that FURIA have qualified and joined Team Liquid, Evil Geniuses, and 9z. One more spot will be decided today between the North Americans of Complexity and the Brazilians of 00 Nation, starting at 9:30am CT.
