NIP destroy Brazilian dreams and eliminate Imperial at Cologne
NIP take the final spot at the IEM Cologne Group stage after a 2-1 win over the now VINI-led Imperial. With Furia eliminated at the hands of TheMongolz, this loss means that Brazil will be without any representatives at the legendary event.
NIP started Overpass with a CT side pistol win. But Imperial took the first gun round, giving them momentum in the early game. headtr1ck’s AWP took two on the A site to tie the score back up at 5-5, and the Swedish majority side ended the half with an 8-7 lead.
After an early back and forth, NIP were up 12-8. That scoreline, however, didn’t last long as Imperial shot up the scoreboard thanks to a resurgent JOTA. Imperial continued their march, eventually taking the map 16-13.
Over on Ancient, hampus’ crew once again started with a pistol win. This time they got up to a very quick 5-1 scoreline, with k0nfig once again popping off. The NIP side stayed dominant through the half, ending on a 12-3 lead. Imperial's second-half pistol win propelled them up to 6, but NIP went flawless to close the map out with a 16-6 win.
Nuke was the final frontier for this battle and Imperial finally started with a pistol round victory to get an early 3-0 start. NIP came back into the swing of things, this time off the back of hampus, and the team put together a 9-6 half in the penultimate half of the Cologne play-ins.
A pistol win for the Swedes spelt dire straits for Imperial as they ecoed the 17th round. In the first gun round, Imperial took the win but NIP continued their winning ways pushing up to a 13-7 lead. Down six rounds, Imperial found some of that fire from Overpass, picking up three rounds back to back to break NIP's economy. Brollan's opener onto JOTA was exactly what the doctor ordered as NIP finally managed to get that elusive 14th. A massive quad from HEN1 kept Imperial's momentum going as the Brazilians tied it up 14-14.
Just 1HP on headtr1ck made the biggest difference as HEN1 lost the 1v1 on time, completely destroying Imperial's economy and their mental game. Pulling out everything they had, Imperial took the 30th round and pushed the series to overtime. After the disastrous 29th round, HEN1 still kept his game up, nearly clutching out the first two rounds of OT. NIP however went flawless in the half hitting matchpoint once again.
hampus took three out in secret to lock in the series, breaking the hearts of millions of Brazilian fans.
Ninjas in PyjamasImperial| Ninjas in Pyjamas |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Kristian 'k0nfig' Wienecke |
79 - 51 | +28 | 89.2 | 74.1% | 1.38 |
 Hampus 'hampus' Poser |
62 - 57 | +5 | 95.2 | 71.8% | 1.23 |
 Daniil 'headtr1ck' Valitov |
53 - 47 | +6 | 62.6 | 74.1% | 1.04 |
| Ludvig 'Brollan' Brolin |
52 - 53 | -1 | 68.3 | 74.1% | 1.01 |
| Fredrik 'REZ' Sterner |
42 - 47 | -5 | 56.8 | 75.3% | 0.97 |
| Imperial |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Jhonatan 'JOTA' Willian |
52 - 58 | -6 | 70.5 | 69.4% | 0.99 |
| Vinicius 'VINI' Figueiredo |
54 - 59 | -5 | 74.5 | 67.1% | 0.99 |
| Ricardo 'boltz' Prass |
48 - 55 | -7 | 73.1 | 70.6% | 0.98 |
| Henrique 'HEN1' Teles |
49 - 53 | -4 | 64.4 | 67.1% | 0.89 |
| João 'felps' Vasconcellos |
49 - 66 | -17 | 70.1 | 52.9% | 0.84 |
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