Calmness, game sense, awareness, trigger discipline, and precision are some of the necessary attributes to become an elite-level CS:GO player. And HAVU’s Finnish rifler Sami “xseveN” Laasanen displayed all of them yesterday in a Dust II match against Oro for the fourth European open qualifier for IEM Fall.
HAVU were ahead on the scoreboard, but Oro were starting to gain momentum since they had won three rounds in a row. In the 27th round, the Finnish side were at a two-vs-five disadvantage with just xseveN and Lasse “ZOREE” Uronen left alive and little to no map control whatsoever. XseveN was lurking B and rotated to the A bombsite via Catwalk and sat on the bombsite while waiting for an opportunity to strike against Oro.
Oro had three players deep down A Long, but they decided to spread themselves across the map. XseveN spotted one on A Ramp and heard that one player had gone toward CT spawn. He then started walking behind the player on A Ramp and had the discipline to pull the trigger only when he could execute the two aforementioned players plus one in Mid with headshots, leaving HAVU in a two-vs-two situation. XseveN then moved quickly to Car, expecting an opponent to come from Long, killed him with a precise spray, and waited, with the bomb already planted by ZOREE, for the last one to come out from Long Doors. The 27-year-old eliminated the final opponent with his back turned to secure an impressive ace.
XseveN’s play was crucial since HAVU secured map point at a time where Oro were starting to threaten them. If it wasn’t for his play, they could have lost the map. Oro grabbed the last three rounds and pushed the game to overtime, but HAVU prevailed, 19-15.
