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The Grand Final of IEM Dallas will be played later today and the two finalists are G2 Esports and Team Vitality.

In Vitality’s case, quite a few people expected them to make it this far. But G2 did not look capable of the same performance.

G2 vs. 9z

G2 started this match as a top-five team fighting against a rank 40 opponent. But everyone knew that this theoretical difference was no longer relevant because 9z had proven themselves in the group stage, defeating MOUZ, Team Liquid, and Team Vitality.

These results, combined with the fact that G2 were playing with a stand-in, created the impression that the real favorite was the South American team. But there was one thing that few people considered: the pressure of competing in front of a huge crowd.

For G2, this wasn’t anything new. All of their players have done it numerous times. But for 9z, who are not used to this competitive level, the screaming fans were a problem.

On both maps, the first half ended with a score of 6 – 6. But in the second half, G2 played better. By far, the best player on the server was Nikola “NiKo” Kovac, followed by Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov.

Vitality vs. Team Spirit

Vitality were expected to have a tough match against Spirit but they somehow managed to shut down their best player, Danil “donk” Kryshkovets, who finished with a score of 26 – 34. Meanwhile, Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut had a score of 44 – 24.

The maps were Dust 2 and Mirage. On the first one, Vitality won 6 – 13. The second one was much tougher: 11 – 13. Without ZywOo’s phenomenal performance, Vitality would have lost. If he wins again the title of the best player in the world at the end of this season, it will be because of matches like this.

Grand Final

G2 and Vitality already played against each other in the group stage. Vitality won that match with ease: 6 – 13, 5 – 13. However, the audience will be cheering for G2 and especially for Jacky “Stewie2K” Yip. So far, his brief return to professional Counter-Strike has been a huge success.

Clearly, he’s not the main reason why G2 are winning, but he is playing his part very well. Just one more excellent performance in the Grand Final of IEM Dallas could bring him an important trophy and maybe even convince him to restart his professional career at some point.

G2 Esports and Team Vitality played incredibly well in the quarterfinals of IEM Dallas, defeating their opponents with the exact same scores.

It remains to be seen if they can play the same way in the semifinals. But for now, they seem to be in great shape and perfectly capable of winning the tournament.

G2’s Victory Against FaZe Clan

G2 started this match with a stand-in. With Rasmus “HooXi” Nielsen missing and Jacky “Stewie2K” Yip being a streamer for the past two years, everyone was sure that FaZe Clan would win with ease. In fact, G2 should have been eliminated in the group stage.

But Stewie2K proved to be a lot better than expected, even after two years of streaming and not playing in top tournaments.

Another thing that helped was Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov’s godlike performance. On both maps, he was the best player on the server and had impressive stats. His rating 2.0 was 1.81 on Dust 2 and 2.13 on Nuke.

On top of that, Nikola “NiKo” Kovac and Nemanja “huNter-” Kovac also excelled. This trio did most of the hard work and caused serious problems to FaZe.

The scores were 8 – 13 on Dust 2 and 2 – 13 on Nuke. G2 struggled only in the first half of the first map, which they lost 7 – 5. After that point, they lost just three more rounds out of 24!

Vitality’s Victory Against HEROIC

Vitality were expected to win. HEROIC played well in the group stage but they couldn’t have possibly beaten Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut. The French superstar usually carries Vitality together with Lotan “Spinx” Giladi. But in this match, the entire roster played well.

The difference between the player with the lowest score and the player with the highest score was three kills. Quite surprisingly, the best player on the server was Dan “apEX” Madesclaire, whose 1.48 rating 2.0 was even better than ZywOo’s.

The map scores were 13 – 8 (on Nuke) and 13 – 2 on Dust 2. From the start, it was obvious that Vitality had done their homework in these past few days. But now they’ll have to play against Team Spirit in the semifinals of IEM Dallas and very few people believe in their chances.

The group stage of IEM Dallas is over and the results are very surprising. Despite featuring most of the world’s best teams, group A was won by 9z, a team that’s currently ranked 40^th globally.

In group B, Natus Vincere had the unfortunate fate of most teams who encounter Team Spirit, and then they lost a second time against HEROIC. This means we won’t see the Copenhagen Major winners in the playoffs.

Group A Results

In group A of IEM Dallas, 9z, Team Vitality, and G2 Esports qualified for the next stage. Of these three competitors, G2 had the most difficult mission.

To advance to the quarterfinals, they had to beat Team Falcons, MOUZ, and Team Liquid. All three of these teams are exceptional and G2 played with a stand-in.

Jacky “Stewie2K” Yip was obviously eager to qualify for the playoffs and have the opportunity to play once more in front of his fans. The tournament takes place in the US, where Stewie2K won the ELEAGUE Boston Major back in 2018, while he was competing for Cloud9.

In the last lower-bracket match, played against Liquid, Stewie2K had a few crucial rounds in which his brilliant decisions led to victory.

9z are a mystery at the moment. They’re not entirely unknown but they were certainly not on anyone’s radar at the start of the tournament.

This is an international roster, with two players from Uruguay, one from Argentina, one from Brazil, one from Spain, and one from Chile. Together, they are playing very well right now.

Group B Results

In group B of IEM Dallas, Team Spirit won without losing a single map. They first defeated FlyQuest 13 – 1. After that, they made quick work of Natus Vincere. In the upper-bracket Final, FaZe Clan came close to beating them but failed. The scores were 11 – 13 on Anubis and 10 – 13 on Nuke.

In the lower bracket, HEROIC were the unlikely winners. Everyone expected Na’Vi, Virtus.pro, or BIG to finish third. But HEROIC played well and won without losing a map in three best-of-three matches.

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 40^th 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.

IEM Dallas started with a lot of predictable results. However, one team, perhaps the most important one, lost against an underdog from outside of the top 30. Nobody expected MOUZ to be defeated by 9z Team in the opening round, but the best-of-one format made it possible.

Other big teams, such as FaZe Clan, Team Vitality, Team Liquid, Team Spirit, and Natus Vincere won their opening matches and in some cases, their second match as well.

Group A Results

In group A of IEM Dallas, MOUZ lost 9 – 13 against 9z Team after a disastrous first half, which ended 3 – 9 on Nuke. Both Jimi “Jimpphat” Salo and Kamil “siuhy” Szkaradek struggled in this match, finishing it with a score of 8 – 18.

They might be suffering from jetlag. Or perhaps the latest CS2 update might have messed up their calculations a little bit. Otherwise, it’s hard to explain what happened there.

Team Liquid defeated Complexity 13 – 6, largely thanks to Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken.

Team Falcons lost another important match but nobody was surprised, given that their opponent was G2 Esports. The score was 13 – 10 on Anubis. Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov single-handedly carried his team to a much-needed victory.

Unfortunately for him, in the second match of the group, his team ran into Vitality, who smashed them: 6 – 13 on Dust II and 5 – 13 on Anubis. In their first match, Vitality defeated Monte but needed overtime rounds to do it: 12 – 16 on Nuke.

G2 are currently playing with Jake “Stewie2K” Yip as a stand-in, so they cannot compete at their maximum capacity.

Group B Results

In group B, FaZe Clan had no problems against M80. The score was 13 – 6 on Ancient. Heroic, despite the recent roster change, had big problems against Virtus.pro on the same map: 4 – 13.

Team Spirit were expected to dismantle FlyQuest and they didn’t disappoint: 13 – 1 on Ancient. Danil “donk” Kryshkovets finished the match with a score of 18 – 7 and a rating 2.0 of 1.86.

Natus Vincere struggled a bit against BIG, but ended up winning 9 – 13 on Ancient. It seems that almost everyone decided to play this map on day 1 of IEM Dallas.

It remains to be seen what can Na’Vi do in their second match of group B, which will be played against Team Spirit. Most likely, they will be defeated.

The player base of CS2 is rapidly growing. In the last 30 days, the game has had almost 950,000 average concurrent players and more than 1.6 million peak players. Clearly, Valve is doing a good job and things are moving in the right direction.

By the time we reach the one-year anniversary, CS2 will likely be as good as CS:GO, if not better. The only thing that’s still missing is some of the old game modes. But they too might soon be back as well.

In the latest CS2 update, Valve decided to do more than just patch the game with the goal of fixing existing bugs. This was one of those updates that could lead to significant changes in the meta, and that’s because the T-side was nerfed while the CT-side was buffed.

Important Changes

The terrorist team used to get $800 for planting the bomb, if it got defused. But now the amount is only $600. According to Valve’s patch notes, this was done to make the first round of each half less impactful.

That $200 difference may prove to be significant at the highest competitive level, especially because the CT side was simultaneously buffed.

The M4A4, one of the most used guns by the CT side, now costs $100 less than before. The price was reduced from $3100 to $3000. At the same time, the price of an incendiary grenade was reduced by $100, from $600 to $500.

This will allow the CTs to buy such grenades more frequently and potentially win more of those key rounds that tend to decide who wins the map. At IEM Dallas 2024, we will find out how big the impact of this buff really is.

The changes made by Valve to the game’s economy will probably make the CT side consider a force-buy a lot more frequently. They will also change the T-side’s approach to gaining money in the desperate rounds.

The reward for planting the bomb is now just $600. That $200 nerf adds up to $1000 for the entire team, which is the cost of several grenades.

Other Changes

An interesting change made in the latest CS2 patch has to do with the rental option offered by the Kilowatt Case. When you open it, you can now rent all of the skins apart from the Exceedingly Rare ones for one week in exchange for receiving one.

Another interesting change is the addition of the “switchhandsleft” and “switchhandsright” console commands, which allow you to move your weapon. Left-handed players will love this.

IEM Dallas 2024 will be a great opportunity for a lot of the world’s best teams to experiment with new tactics and strategies. This tournament offers $250.000 in prize money and despite being S-tier, is considered one of the less important CS2 events of this season.

In reality, however, the list of competitors is very impressive. For those who don’t evaluate LAN events based on their prize pools, IEM Dallas could easily be considered as prestigious as any other S-tier tournament because most of the world’s top 16 teams will compete in it. Among the participants, there are eight top 10 teams.

Dates, Location, And Format

IEM Dallas 2024 is scheduled to take place in the US, between May 27 – June 2. It features 16 teams and provides one week full of hyped matches.

The tournament format is very basic: two groups of eight teams followed by playoffs. Three teams out of each group advance to the second stage. The winners go directly to the semifinals. The 2^nd and 3^rd place teams go to the quarterfinals.

The first round of group stage matches are best-of-one. The remaining matches are best-of-three. That includes the Grand Final. The group stage format is double-elimination.

Teams

These are the 16 teams that will compete in IEM Dallas:

• MOUZ
• 9z Team
• Complexity
• Team Liquid
• G2 Esports
• Team Falcons
• Team Vitality
• Monte
• FaZe Clan
• M80
• Virtus.pro
• HEROIC
• Team Spirit
• FlyQuest
• Natus Vincere
• BIG

The first eight teams on this list will play in group A. The bottom eight will play in group B.

Group A Favorites

These are the favorite teams in group A:

• MOUZ
• Complexity
• Team Liquid
• G2 Esports
• Team Vitality

As you can see, five teams are competing for just three qualification spots. We could also add Team Falcons to the list, even though their recent results indicate that they have very low chances at this competitive level.

Group B Favorites

These are the favorite teams in group B:

• FaZe Clan
• Team Spirit
• Natus Vincere
• Virtus.pro
• BIG

There are many excellent teams in group B of IEM Dallas, but this group’s top three favorites are considerably stronger than the other competitors. That’s why FaZe Clan, Team Spirit, and Natus Vincere should have a relatively easy path to the playoffs.

Given Na’Vi’s unfavorable match-up against Team Spirit, they will probably lose the second match if everything goes according to plan for both teams in the first round. FaZe and Spirit should, in principle, meet in the upper bracket Final.

Eternal Fire have been a strong CS2 team since September 2023. Initially, they climbed from 34^th place to 13^th place in the global rankings, and then maintained their good form for a long time.

In 2024, EF finished 5^th – 8^th at PGL Major Copenhagen, 9^th – 12^th at IEM Katowice, and now, 1^st at CCT Season 1 Global Finals. This is the story of how they won their first S-tier trophy in Counter-Strike.

Eternal Fire’s Path To Victory

EF started CCT Season 1 Global Finals in group A, where they had two strong opponents: Aurora Gaming and SAW. However, because Aurora played their first match against SAW, EF had the opportunity to play against PARIVISION, a Russian team with no real chances at this level.

The match proved to be more challenging than expected but in the end, the Turks won. The scores were 13 – 7 on Vertigo and 13 – 11 on Mirage. Ali “Wicadia” Haydar was the best player on the server.

In the second match of the group stage, EF defeated SAW after making a comeback on the first map, Anubis. The score was 8 – 4 after the first half and 13 – 16 at the end. On the second map, SAW were clearly demoralized and lost 7 – 13. Once again, Wicadia played much better than everyone else.

Thanks to these victories, Eternal Fire won the group and then had a relatively easy path in the playoffs. Their first match was against BetBoom Team.

The first map, Mirage, was a disaster: 3 – 13. But on Vertigo (13 – 8) and Dust II (13 – 4), they played much better and no longer had to rely on one player to carry everyone else.

In the semifinals, EF defeated GamerLegion: 13 – 10 on Anubis and 13 – 7 on Mirage. This victory must have felt great for Wicadia and his crew, who finally had the opportunity to compete in the Grand Final of a prestigious CS2 LAN event that offered $500.000 in prize money.

In the final match of the tournament, played against Team Liquid, EF won the first maps with ease: 5 – 13 on Inferno and 10 – 13 on Anubis. On the third map, they had a huge advantage after the first half (3 – 9) but ended up losing 16 – 14.

The match was won on the fourth map, Nuke, which had perfectly equal scores until the end of overtime: 6 – 6, 12 – 12, 14 – 16.

Header image credit: Eden Esports, Eternal Fire

Despite retiring for a period of nearly two years, Jacky “Stewie2K” Yip is still one of the most talented CS2 players in the world.

At the upcoming IEM Dallas 2024, he will stand in for G2 Esports. Rasmus “HooXi” Nielsen will not attend the event, which means that Stewie2K will have a great opportunity to play in an S-tier event after more than two years.

Stewie2K’s Streaming Prowess And Schedule

In addition to being a great CS2 player, Stewie2K is also a very entertaining streamer with more than 1.4 million Twitch followers. He streams quite frequently and you can check the exact schedule on his Twitch account.

Now that Stewie2K is a Tradeit streamer, you will probably have the chance to watch him outplaying his opponents even more regularly, and possibly learn about some of the best skins in CS2.

Stewie2K’s CS2 Career

His career started back in 2015. However, it took him almost a year to be noticed by a top esports organization. After being signed by Cloud9, he only needed around six months to start having a big impact. In June and July 2016, C9 finished 5^th – 6^th at Esports Championship Series Season 1 Finals and 5^th – 8^th at ELEAGUE Season 1.

Numerous good results followed, including Grand Finals in A-tier and S-tier tournaments such as Norther Arena 2016 Toronto and DreamHack Open Bucharest 2016. The first big moment for C9 came at ESL Pro League Season 4, where they defeated SK Gaming in the Grand Final and won $200.000.

In 2017, Cloud9 played in a lot of B-tier, A-tier, and S-tier tournaments, finishing 9^th – 11^th at PGL Major Krakow and 2^nd at ESL One Cologne. These results, and many more, gave them the confidence to persevere.

Stewie2K’s biggest achievement to date came in January 2018, at ELEAGUE Major Boston, where Cloud9 gave American fans a truly inspirational experience. The team probably wouldn’t have won without the massive support of the crowd, who cheered for them and made them play the best CS of their lives.

Everyone on that roster excelled when it mattered most. Some of the teams defeated by Stewie2K in this tournament were Astralis, G2 Esports, SK Gaming, and FaZe Clan. The Grand Final had three maps and ended with a 19 – 22 score on the third. Words cannot describe how epic it was.

Just several months later, Stewie2K left Cloud and joined SK Gaming, which later became MIBR. The results were not as good as expected but they weren’t terrible either.

His next org was Team Liquid. He joined at the end of the 2018 season and the team quickly started to win tournament after tournament. 2019 ended up being one of Liquid’s best years ever in Counter-Strike.

The most important trophies won by them that year came at iBUYPOWER Masters IV, IEM Sydney, DreamHack Masters Dallas, ESL Pro League S9 Finals, ESL Cologne, BLAST Pro Series Los Angeles, and IEM Chicago. Liquid also played plenty of lost Grand Finals that year.

After two more seasons, Stewie2K joined Evil Geniuses. The team struggled, partly because of the global pandemic and the psychological effect it had on professional players. In July 2022, he decided to become a streamer for EG and now, almost two years later, he started streaming for Tradeit.gg.

Header image credit: Cloud9