IEM Dallas is proving to be a crazy CS2 tournament. With so many strong teams in the race and only three playoffs spots available for each group, it was only a matter of time until some of the big teams were eliminated. But nobody expected MOUZ to be on that list.
The world’s number-one team came to IEM Dallas after winning ESL Pro League S19 and BetBoom Dacha Belgrade, two S-tier events that took place this month. Because of this, MOUZ were expected to get a top-four result here.
So their elimination in the group stage is quite surprising and proves that in CS2, a high rank doesn’t guarantee a good result.
MOUZ’s Results
MOUZ started with a defeat against 9z on the first day of the tournament, who are currently ranked 40th in the world. The same underdog then went on to beat Team Liquid too.
After losing this best-of-one, MOUZ started their long lower bracket journey with a match against Complexity. Despite a shaky start on Vertigo (16 – 19), they managed to win 2 – 1 and made us believe that they might, after all, qualify for the playoffs.
But in the second match of the lower bracket, MOUZ encountered G2 Esports. Nikola “NiKo” Kovac and Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov were both in great shape. Thanks to their individual scores and Jake “Stewie2K” Yip’s magical rounds, G2 won 2 – 1. The scores were 13 – 8 on Inferno, 5 – 13 on Nuke, and 13 – 10 on Ancient.
On the third map, G2 had a phenomenal second half and won three consecutive rounds to close the series.
Other Results
After the first two competitive days, 9z, Team Vitality, FaZe Clan, and Team Spirit are already qualified for the playoffs of IEM Dallas 2024. It remains to be seen who will be the winners of the two groups. Both of them will advance directly to the semifinals.
In group A of IEM Dallas, G2 and Liquid will play in the lower bracket Final for a place in the playoffs. In group B, four teams compete for the last qualification spot: Natus Vincere, HEROIC, Virtus.pro, and BIG. Of these four, Na’Vi has the highest chance of succeeding.
