Heroic are the first team through to the IEM Katowice 2022 playoffs

Heroic grabbed the first playoff spot at IEM Katowice 2022 after defeating Vitality 2-0 today. The Danish CS:GO squad picked up a 2-1 victory against OG yesterday and now will play just one more series in the group stage to determine whether they advance directly to the semifinals of the event or to the quarterfinals.

For those who only look at the scoreboard, it may seem like Heroic dominated Vitality today. But that wasn’t the case. The Danes were behind 7-1 on Mirage and managed to win almost seven rounds in a row to give them a good chance in the second half. Once they were on the CT side, Heroic displayed their best and won the game 16-12 despite losing the second pistol.

On Inferno, however, it was the other way around. Heroic were ahead 7-0 and saw Vitality tie the score at 7-7. The French-Danish team had one map point to close out the game and tie the series, but Heroic did the unthinkable and took the game to overtime with just pistols. Vitality had chances, once again, to win Inferno in the first overtime but Heroic resisted and ended up winning it in the second overtime after an impressive one-vs-two clutch by the captain and AWPer Casper “cadiaN” Møller.

Now, Heroic will have one day to rest before they face the winner of Ninjas in Pyjamas vs. Virtus Pro on Saturday, Feb. 20 to decide who’s the Group A winner. Vitality, on the other hand, will play the winner of Copenhagen Flames vs. Gambit in the second round of the lower bracket and have to win that series and one more to progress to the playoffs of IEM Katowice.