Gambit, the best CS:GO team in the world at the moment, kept their cool at IEM Cologne 2021 after mousesports won the first map of today’s series and reverse swept the international team to secure a victory in the first round of the LAN tournament’s main event.
Mousesports, who have been playing great as of late after a rough first couple of months with Finn “karrigan” Andersen’s replacement, Australian in-game leader Christopher “dexter” Nong, had a real shot of taking down Gambit today. They won Inferno, the first map of the series, 16-14 but succumbed to Gambit on Vertigo (16-3) and Mirage (16-12), even though they had a huge lead in the latter map.
Gambit really had to give it their all on Mirage, the third map of the series, since mousesports had a comfortable 12-6 lead. Gambit didn’t let the series slip away, though, and won 10 rounds in a row to send mousesports to the lower bracket. The comeback probably wouldn’t have been possible if Sergey “Ax1Le” Rykhtorov and Timofey “interz” Yakushin didn’t secure two one-vs-three clutches in the first half, giving Gambit some room to work with during the second half.
Ax1Le, who’s been one of the best players for Gambit, and in-game leader Vladislav “nafany” Gorshkov finished the series with 60 kills each, followed by Abay “Hobbit” Khasenov, who got 56 frags. The match was a true endurance test for Gambit, who became the best team in the world during the online era of Counter-Strike and now have to prove that they can win big matches on LAN as well.
The Russian team will return to the server tomorrow at 9:45am CT to face Ninjas in Pyjamas, who beat Team Liquid in the opening round today. Mousesports, on the other hand, will play an elimination series against Liquid at the same time.
