Ninjas in Pyjamas beat Cloud9 2-0 today in IEM Katowice’s Group A lower bracket round one to send the NA team home from the CS:GO event.
With this result, the Ninjas are still alive in the tournament and will have to win two more best-of-three series to advance to the playoffs. C9, on the other hand, are the first team eliminated from IEM Katowice.
NiP dominated C9 in the first map of the series, Overpass, which was the North American’s map pick. The Swedish squad won 16-2 with their captain, Lekr0, leading the charge at 20 kills.
That result likely affected Cloud9’s confidence heading into Vertigo, the Ninjas’ map pick. NiP won the first half 12-3. Although C9 played a bit better in the second half, it wasn’t enough to stop NiP, who won 16-9. This time, the newcomer Tim “nawwk” Jonasson top fragged with 21 kills.
Although C9 have been eliminated, this was the first big LAN event that this lineup has played together under C9’s banner. Unlike last year, this result shouldn’t break the lineup apart since they’re slowly developing into a better team.
As for NiP, they aren’t as good as the best teams, like Astralis, Vitality, mousesports, and Team Liquid. But they played relatively well against Vitality yesterday and it looks like they’ll at least be competitive at IEM Katowice, even if they get eliminated in the later rounds.
You can keep track of the IEM Katowice 2020 results here.
