IEM Dallas 2024 is scheduled to take place between May 27 – June 2. But the qualifiers are already underway. In fact, most of them have already ended. Only the European one is yet to be completed and the final match will take place today, between HEROIC and Metizport.
In the Upper Bracket Final, Virtus.pro defeated HEROIC and qualified for the big event. Their path to victory was captivating to watch.
How Virtus.pro Qualified for IEM Dallas 2024
VP started the European Qualifier for IEM Dallas with a match against B8. This was supposed to be a quick 2 – 0 victory for them, but that is not what happened. B8 fought hard on the first map, Inferno, and won 9 – 13.
Keep in mind that this team features some very interesting players, including Andrii “npl” Kukharskyi, who used to compete for Natus Vincere.
Being a former teammate of Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev gives npl a lot more confidence than he would normally have at the age of 18. However, Virtus.pro have too many formidable players, and that became obvious on the second and third maps, which ended 13 – 6 and 13 – 9 in their favor.
The second match was played against Apeks. This was an even bigger struggle for VP, who lost the second map 11 – 13 and then barely won the third with the same score, 13 – 11.
If Joakim “jkaem” Myrbostad had received a bit more support from his teammates, this match would have ended badly for VP. Their best player was Petr “fame” Bolyshev, whose 52 – 38 score had a big impact on the match.
In the Upper Bracket Final, the score between Virtus.pro and HEROIC was 2 – 0, but a closer look at the map scores indicates that the match was a real struggle for both sides: 13 – 10 on Overpass followed by a 13 – 11 on Mirage. Once again, fame came to the rescue.
Thanks to this victory, VP will compete in Dallas at the end of May. But before they do that, they’ll play in several other tournaments, including the Copenhagen Major.
Header image credit: ESL
