Four unbeaten teams remain at the Intel Extreme Masters Atlanta. But among those four, one team stands out after two days of play.
For the second time in as many days, Legacy cruised to a 2-0 sweep Tuesday to advance to the Group B upper-bracket final, where they will face Natus Vincere on Wednesday.
The $300,000 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive event features 16 teams divided into two groups for the double-elimination opening round. The group winners will head to the playoff semifinals. The group runners-up will move to the playoff quarterfinals as high seeds, and the third-place team from each group will head to the playoff quarterfinals as low seeds.
All matches are best-of-three until the best-of-five grand final on Sunday. The winning side will receive $125,000.
Legacy opened their upper-bracket semifinal against Astralis with a 13-8 win on Dust II then put the match away with a 13-6 win on Nuke. Bruno “latto” Rebelatto and Eduardo “dumau” Wolkmer led the all-Brazilian Legacy squad with 37 kills apiece while combining for a plus-31 kill-death differential.
Legacy will next face Natus Vincere, who topped GamerLegion 2-1 in the other Group B semi. Natus Vincere took Inferno 13-4 to open the match but GL answered with a 13-1 domination on Ancient. Natus Vincere took the deciding map with a narrow 13-11 win on Mirage. Ihor “w0nderful” Zhdanov led Natus Vincere with 44 kills, and fellow Ukrainian Valeriy “b1t” Vakhovskiy was right behind with 43 in the win.
In Group A, BetBoom Team took down Team Vitality 2-1 in one upper-bracket semifinal. BetBoom won 13-10 on Anubis, Vitality answered with a 13-8 win on Overpass and BetBoom put the win away with a 13-8 victory on Nuke. The all-Russian BetBoom squad got 50 kills apiece from Kirill “Magnojez” Rodnov and Aleksandr “zorte” Zagodyrenko, with Rodnov posting a match-low 36 deaths and Zagodyrenko posting 37.
paiN Gaming took the other Group A semi, beating FUT Esports 13-8 on Nuke before falling 13-10 on Overpass. paiN escaped with the win with a 13-11 win on Dust II. Another all-Brazilian outfit, paiN got a match-high 55 kills from Guilherme “piriajr” Barbosa.
In the lower-bracket quarterfinals, B8 beat BC.Game Esports and FaZe Clan topped NRG — both in sweeps — in Group A, while SINNERS Esports beat Passion UA 2-1 and Team Liquid beat M80 2-1 in Group B.
Play continues Wednesday with a pair of lower-bracket semis and the upper-bracket final in each group.
Wednesday schedule
Group A lower-bracket semifinals
–FUT Esports vs. B8
–Team Vitality vs. FaZe Clan
Group A upper-bracket final
–BetBoom Team vs. paiN Gaming
Group B lower-bracket semifinals
–Astralis vs. SINNERS Esports
–GamerLegion vs. Team Liquid
Group B upper-bracket final
–Natus Vincere vs. Legacy
Intel Extreme Masters Atlanta prize pool
1. $125,000
2. $50,000
3. $30,000
4. $20,000
5-6. $12,500
7-8. $7,000
9-12. $5,000
13-16. $4,000, BC.Game Esports, NRG, Passion UA, M80
–Field Level Media
