North go out of the tournament as NiP beat them in three (Train 14-16, Inferno 16-11, Overpass 16-8), while fnatic manage a comfortable 2-0 upset over FaZe for a semi-final spot (Inferno 16-11, Cache 16-8).

After picking up a 4-1 lead at the start of the T side of Train, NiP was overaggressive in a B site afterplant on which North pounced and started stringing rounds together. The score was tied at 4-4 when Valdemar "⁠valde⁠" Bjørn Vangså pulled of a 1v3 to get his team into the lead and the Danes continued that streak to go up 8-4.

Dennis "⁠dennis⁠" Edman stole the following round away with four AWP kills (8-5) and NiP added one more before the switch to make it 9-6. Fredrik "⁠REZ⁠" Sterner stopped valde's clutch attempt in the pistol to get NiP the much-needed good CT start, but North were dominant in the rifle rounds, soon finding themselves in 14-10 lead. Patrik "⁠f0rest⁠" Lindberg with the Deagle and William "⁠draken⁠" Sundin with the AWP saved them then and the score was soon once again tied, but North managed to win two frantic rounds on A to win NiP's map pick 16-14.

NiP recovered the series after losing on their pick, Train

NiP started Inferno poorly, with the only resistance they could put together early on being REZ single-handedly locking down banana on the first buy round, getting the ace. North still got a 6-1 lead, but then NiP started bringing things back, with f0rest's crazy 4K from balcony proving pivotal in that regard (6-3). The Swedes tied it up the score at 6-6 before Christopher "⁠GeT_RiGhT⁠" Alesund and REZ locked won a B execute to finally take the lead, and they eventually finished the half 8-7 up.

North were clinical in the second pistol round, only losing one player, but none of that was seen in the next round and NiP took the force buy to swing the game in their favor. The Swedes were soon 13-8 up when dennis's double-entry on short opened up the A bombsite, allowing NiP to secure the afterplant easily and later on close out the game 16-11.

The start to the deciding map, Overpass, was a back-and-forth affair, but NiP ended up on top and started adding rounds to the board. As the score was 6-1 in their favor, NiP went for an aggressive mid play and shut down North before they could reach the fountain area. North then picked it up, adding their first round in a while and following it up shortly by exploding onto the B site.

As the Swedes' money started looking week, the Danish side started adding more and more rounds, with Daniel "⁠mertz⁠" Mertz clutching a 1v1 against the opposing AWPer to make it 8-6. The half ended 9-6 for NiP, North won the pistol, but went down to the second consecutive force buy from the Swedes in the end. With that, it was 12-8 before North could afford their first buy, but GeT_RiGhT denied them that round with a 1v2 clutch.

draken made a big play to earn his team a chance to get onto map point after entries went North's way, while GeT_RiGhT and dennis clutched it out, eventually taking the 16-8 win on Overpass.

IEM Katowice 2018 Best of 3 North Matchpage 1 2 NiP 16 Train 14 11 Inferno 16 8 Overpass 16

North K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 Valdemar 'valde' Bjørn Vangsåvalde 70 - 53 +17 93.0 1.31 Markus 'Kjaerbye' KjærbyeKjaerbye 61 - 63 -2 78.4 0.99 Daniel 'mertz' Mertzmertz 52 - 52 0 64.7 0.95 Philip 'aizy' Aistrupaizy 47 - 56 -9 64.7 0.92 Mathias 'MSL' LauridsenMSL 39 - 62 -23 61.4 0.84 NiP K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 William 'draken' Sundindraken 68 - 54 +14 82.5 1.29 Fredrik 'REZ' SternerREZ 63 - 55 +8 80.2 1.18 Dennis 'dennis' Edmandennis 58 - 53 +5 83.9 1.17 Christopher 'GeT_RiGhT' AlesundGeT_RiGhT 47 - 52 -5 73.5 1.04 Patrik 'f0rest' Lindbergf0rest 49 - 55 -6 65.7 0.92

In the series that decided which team would go straight to the semi-final, Inferno was kicked off by FaZe grabbing the first two rounds on the defensive side before fnatic won against the leftover weaponry by recovering a 3v5. The Swedes went on to grab a 5-3 lead, but their momentum was broken by Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen who spearheaded a B retake and got two key kills.

When the score was 6-6 and FaZe was hoping to end the half on a high, they made a mess out of a 4v2 situation which Maikil "⁠Golden⁠" Selim and Freddy "⁠KRIMZ⁠" Johansson turned on their heads, setting their team up for a 8-7 Terrorist half finish. The lead was advanced by a pistol round win, after which neither team could establish dominance for some time. fnatic finally tied four together, with KRIMZ making it 14-10 as he got a hat trick of frags. FaZe stole away a force buy before the end of the game, but fnatic was still able to close it 16-11.

fnatic secured three back-to-back wins and a place in the IEM Katowice 2018 semi-final

Following up on a strong Inferno, fnatic went on to grab a 7-0 lead on the Counter-Terrorist side of Cache, FaZe's map pick. The European mixture usually proved quite deadly on the offensive side, but this time, they were hitting a wall until round eight, finally adding one to the board. FaZe followed that with an A explosion and eventually broke fnatic's economy, making the score 7-4. karrigan's team looked better in the second half of their Terrorist side, but the Swedes mustered two force buy wins to make it 9-6 for the half.

Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač and Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard got two apiece in the pistol to win the round, but no momentum was built as Jonas "⁠Lekr0⁠" Olofsson got a double entry with the Deagle, stealing away the following one. fnatic hit 13-7 before NiKo had a trademark Deagle round on A, securing three in total to earn FaZe their eight. fnatic instantly replied, though, as a B split worked perfectly and set Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist and co. up for a 16-8 victory and a 2-0 score for the series.

IEM Katowice 2018 Best of 3 FaZe Matchpage 0 2 fnatic 11 Inferno 16 8 Cache 16