The Semifinalists for IEM Sydney Have Been Decided Following Some Crazy Quarterfinal Action – Highlights and Recap

The IEM Sydney 2018 Quarterfinals have been completed and only four CS:GO teams remain to play in front of the Australian crowd.

The $250,000 IEM Sydney Counter-Strike: Global Offensive competition is getting towards the business end of things as the quarterfinal matches have been completed.

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With Astralis and TyLoo topping their respective groups, the Danish and Chinese teams earned a BYE into the semifinals, while FaZe Clan, Fnatic, Renegades, and Mousesports all remained to try to earn a spot.

The first match of the day saw FaZe Clan take on Fnatic. After a slow start to the competition FaZe seemed to wake up in the Group A decider match against Cloud9 and they brought that same heat into their game against the Swedes.

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FaZe looked comfortable from the get-go on their map pick, Cache, running out to an early lead which they never looked likely to relinquish.

Ladislav ‘GuardiaN’ Kovács continued his impressive tournament form but it was Richard ‘Xizt’ Landström that stepped up to help FaZe close out map one with an impressive 16-8 score.

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Next up was Mirage and FaZe quickly gained a 14-6 lead before Fnatic finally started to show some signs of life and began to mount a comeback.

Fnatic chipped away at the European superteam all the way until round 30 but FaZe finally showed the sort of determination that people have been hoping to see from them, securing the 16-14 victory and a spot in the semifinals against TyLoo.

Next up was Mousesports against the hometown favorites, Renegades. While the Australian team certainly had the support of the crowd, Mousesports looked imperious on Mirage and quickly secured the 16-7 lead.

Robin ‘ropz’ Kool had a particularly strong game alongside the team’s awper, Tomáš “oskar” Šťastný.

Map two looked more promising for Renegades as they took the T side pistol round on Inferno and quickly extended their lead to 3-0. However, Mousesports picked up the first gun round and never seemed to look back, closing out the half 11-4.

Renegades mounted an incredible comeback in the second half thanks to some impressive play from their in-game leader/AWPer Noah ‘Nifty’ Francis but it was Mousesports that made it to match point first at 15-14.

Luckily the Australian crowd was granted overtime thanks to an impressive B retake from Renegades who seemed to be carrying all of the momentum into the MR3 $16,000 overtime rounds.

The first overtime was a back and forth affair but once again Renegades managed to hang on to force a second.

Aaron ‘AZR’ Ward was instrumental in keeping Renegades in the game, picking up multi-kill rounds and clearly acting as one of the team’s emotional leaders.

The second overtime started with Renegades showing that they weren’t afraid to trade blows with the European team.

This time around it was the Nifty show again as the dynamic AWPer proved to be a nuisance throughout, catching Mousesports off-guard on numerous occasions and helping to get his team to map point.

Finally the Renegades players managed to close out the map off the back of yet another incredible Nifty round as the young in-game leader finished with a total of 51 kills.

Renegades secured a third map decider on Train with this win, a map that Mousesports has a history of struggling to close out on.

Mousesports got off to the perfect start on the final map of the series and quickly found a 5-0 lead on the T side before Renegades finally got on the board.

However, the Australian side bounced back in the remaining rounds of the half and actually held a narrow 8-7 lead by the time they switched sides.

Again it was Mousesports to take the early lead in the second half following yet another pistol round win.

Once again ropz was on form and he quickly boosted his team’s economy with an impressive MP9 ace in one of the anti-eco rounds.

Renegades were able to bounce back once the gun rounds started up again and this time around it was more of a team effort from the Australian side.

Eventually the Mousesports players managed to get their noses out in front again and Renegades were forced to use their final timeout with the score at 13-12.

The timeout seemed to work wonders for Renegades and they soon found themselves on match point but this time it was Mousesports that showed their resilience, forcing the third overtime of the series.

Mousesports dominated the first half of overtime as oskar continued to shut down entire sections of the map with his AWP.

Needing a perfect second half of overtime just to force another reset, Renegades looked nervous and were immediately shut down 19-15, ending their miracle run.

Mousesports will now advance to play Astralis in the semifinals on May 5th in a match that promises to deliver even more fireworks.