Americans out at ESWC after falling in tiebreaker

The Cloud9 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team’s trip to Europe didn’t go exactly as planned.

Last week they fell in the group stage of a tough FACEIT League season two playoff in Milan, Italy, losing a tie breaker against Virtus.Pro due to round differential. On Thursday, they befell the same fate in Paris at the Electronic Sports World Cup.

The American squad played very well in Paris, winning their first four group stage matches including a 16-11 victory against Virtus.Pro on de_cache. But like in Italy, French team LDLC took a game off them. Unlike Italy, Virtus managed to beat the French powerhouse.

That sent the group into a three-way tiebreaker. Cloud9 found themselves out of the event for a second time, just two rounds behind Virtus in the tie breaker, despite holding the same record as Virtus.Pro and LDLC. Ouch.

@c9seangares That format was incredibly tough. Keep it up, you know that your team is still beastly!

— NBK- (@LDLC_NBK) October 30, 2014

It’s a disappointing result for a team with the hopes of a nation resting on their shoulders. American Counter-Strike has struggled to recover over the years since the Championship Gaming Series left the rubble of the scene in its wake after its dissolution in 2008. Cloud9 and iBuyPower have shown they have the ability to contend on the global stage, but neither team has really put it together.

At FACEIT, Cloud9 and Virtus.Pro both held 1-3 records, each team losing two matches to LDLC and trading games against each other. But Cloud9’s loss to Virtus.Pro only saw them tally six rounds against the 11 Virtus scored against them.

In Paris the result was even more frustrating. Cloud9 beat Virtus.Pro 16-11, putting the Polish team in dire straits. But Virtus managed to beat LDLC, something they couldn’t in Milan, by a score of 16-13. That meant the group results rode on the final match of the day, Cloud9 vs. LDLC. Cloud9 would go through if they managed to take 10 rounds against LDLC. They only managed seven.

Just three rounds separated the team from elimination.

Results like Cloud9’s Electronic Sports World Cup show the team has what it takes to compete. But they’ll need a little bit more consistency—and perhaps a little more luck—to really pull off that big result.  

Screengrab via FACEIT/YouTube