FaZe and Astralis are poised for the ECS Season 3 Finals playoffs

FaZe Clan and Astralis knocked out G2 Esports and Team Liquid from playoff contention at the ECS Season 3 Finals in London, England earlier today. Their decider matches concluded the group stage for this weekend, and both FaZe and Astralis survived the initial stage with 2-1 records.

FaZe Clan

The men of FaZe Clan rocked G2 Esports on Overpass and Cache. G2 kept it close on their Terrorist side in the first half of Overpass, but FaZe’s strong Terrorist half left G2 struggling to hold their sites throughout. The first map ended at 16-10. Nikola “NiKo” Kovač was the top-frag on Overpass with 28 kills and a 110.5 average damage per round.

FaZe’s Terrorist side was a lot stronger on Train than on Overpass as they capitalized on G2’s mistakes–especially force-buys. Several good A site executes and good Counter-Terrorist defenses from the FaZe boys helped them sweep G2 2-0 with a 16-11 win on Train. FaZe placed second in Group A to clinch the third playoff spot at ECS.

Astralis

Astralis absolutely decimated Team Liquid on Train. An overwhelmingly dominant Terrorist side from the Danes left Liquid asking for mercy on one of Astralis’ best maps. Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz had a top-notch performance on Train with a 23-8 kill death ratio and a 104.0 ADR.

Liquid surprisingly put up more of a fight on Overpass with an all-around good defense in the first half. An even better second half from Liquid forced a third map decider on Inferno, with Liquid pulling off a 16-10 upset on Astralis’ primary map pick. Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski proved himself as the team’s all-star with a 26 kill top-frag and a 108.4 ADR.

Inferno seemed to be an even map in the first half with the score at a close 8-7 in favor of Astralis. After switching sides, Astralis exploited Liquid’s weak Counter-Terrorist set-ups, giving up only three rounds in the second half before ending the map. The series ended 2-1 in favor of Astralis with their 16-10 win on Inferno over a nervous Liquid. 

The semifinals

Astralis continue onto the championship bracket to play the Brazilians of SK Gaming in the semifinals, while FaZe Clan will play North America’s favorites, Cloud9, on Sunday. The winners of both matches will advance to the grand finals later in the day, where they will compete for the grand prize of $250,000.