Gambit’s 2021 display of dominance continued today when they sent Evil Geniuses down to the lower bracket of the BLAST Premier 2021 Spring Final. Fresh off of their IEM Summer victory, Gambit remain locked in this year with few signs of slowing down and have now beaten EG twice in the past week.
Today’s CS:GO series between Gambit and EG was far more competitive than the 2-0 scoreline indicates, though, especially on the first map, Inferno. Both teams narrowly won their T-side halves 8-7 and they needed two overtime periods before Gambit finally broke the deadlock in the final round of the second overtime, the 42nd overall round of the map. There were plenty of clutches and big production from stars on each side, but it was the over-30 kill performances of both Dmitry “sh1ro” Sokolov and Sergey “Ax1Le” Rykhtorov that were the difference-maker.
With Gambit stealing away EG’s map pick, EG needed to come out firing on Dust II. And that’s what they did, jumping out to a quick 6-0 lead on their CT side on the shoulders of Owen “oBo” Schlatter and Tsvetelin “CeRq” Dimitrov. But Gambit recovered with some T-side rounds, bringing about a 9-6 EG lead at halftime. Gambit took over on their CT side, however, when both oBo ad CeRq went quiet and sh1ro again provided a plethora of kills for his side. Gambit only surrendered two rounds to EG in the second half, taking the map 16-11 and the series 2-0.
Since the Gambit Youngsters were promoted to the main roster in late 2020, they’ve been red hot, winning several events, including two landmark victories at IEM Katowice and IEM Summer in 2021. The whole team has been stellar, but sh1ro in particular has ascended into the conversation for the world’s best CS:GO player.
Now, the scorching hot Gambit team will look to take home a first-place finish and move on the BLAST Global Final. They advance to the upper bracket second round and await the winner of Ninjas in Pyjamas vs. Complexity.
EG are still adjusting to their newest additions and IGL stanislaw said they’re still in a confidence-building stage. Despite the loss, EG certainly gave the world’s No. 1 team right now a lot of trouble and will look to build on that in the lower bracket.
