IEM XI Oakland - Ninjas in Pyjamas crowned Champions

Ninjas in Pyjamas have defeated SK Gaming in the Grand Final of IEM Oakland to win the $300.000 tournament.

Both SK and NiP were drawn into Group B where they advanced to the playoff stage by finishing it second and third respectively. Due to the tournament format, they played an additional match in order to reach thr semi-finals. In the semis, SK defeated Astralis, a team that finished its group ahead of teams such as G2 Esports, Team Liquid and Na'Vi. On the opposite side of the bracket, NiP bested FaZe after an intense best-of-three series.

The veto process of the Grand Final surprised the analysts as NiP decided not to ban Train which is the arguably best map of SK Gaming. The Brazilians accepted the gift and picked Train. Cache was picked by NiP and Cobblestone was left over to be the decider map.

NiP started Train as Counter-Terrorists, knowing they had to grab as many rounds as possible in order to defeat SK when they switch to their phenomenal CT side. The pistol round victory was a great start for the Swedes but they were unable to grab the second round against SK's force-buy. After losing two rounds, Patrik "f0rest" Lindberg and Jacob "pyth" Mourujärvi picked up four kills combined to make the score 3-2. Epitacio "TACO" de Melo responded with his triple kill in the following round to reset the CT economy. At 5-2, NiP secured the round but found themselves forced to make an eco yet another time as SK won the 9th round to make it 6-3. Until the final round of the first half, NiP managed to grab just a single round and Marcelo "coldzera" David's 1v2 clutch in the final round determined the halftime score, 11-4.

The second half of Train was a shortened version of SK's CT side brilliance. The Brazilian side started the half by grabbing the pistol round and never made a mistake in the remainder of the map to close it out 16-4.

On Cache, it was NiP's turn to dominate the first half. Despite losing the pistol round, NiP bounced back and won round after round to gain a 5 round lead at 9-3. Lindberg's triple kill with his AWP in the 13th round won another round for NiP to make the score 10-3. Fernando "fer" Alvarenga's quad-kill secured the following round for SK and their victory in the last round of the first half made the score line at halftime 10-5 in favour of NiP.

NiP seemed to be close to victory on Cache after winning the second pistol round and an anti-eco round following it, but SK woke up, thanks to David's amazing plays including a double entry frag with the deagle, a 1v2 clutch and a quad-kill, each in different rounds. Suddenly, it was 12-9. SK fought very hard to finalize their comeback but in the end, it was a 16-14 victory for NiP.

The decider map, Cobblestone, started with Richard "Xizt" Landström's triple-kill in a bombsite B push. Using the advantage of the pistol round victory, NiP established an early lead of 6-2. SK decided to force-buy in the 9th round and David delivered once again with a quad-kill, making the score 6-3 but NiP didn't let SK catch them and went to the halftime with a 10-5 lead.

After switching to the T side, SK let NiP to grab only one round before they evened things at 11-11. SK even took the lead thanks to de Melo's 1v2 clutch. NiP gave away one more round before Landström killed three with his scar20. Despite their victory in the previous round, NiP weren't able to prevent SK from making it 14-12 and getting closer to the match point. Under high pressure, NiP managed to win three rounds in a row to take it to the Championship point. Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund and Lindberg's impressive plays played a crucial role in that process. In the 30th round of the 3rd map, SK had to play with tec-9's as they lacked decent amount of money to put in an adequate buy. The Swedes didn't let the map go to overtime and won the final round to be crowned as IEM Oakland champions.

Final standings of IEM Oakland can be found below:



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