This article is part of our CS:GO Recap series.
The 2017 professional Counter-Strike season is officially underway with the first day of DreamHack Leipzig in the books. At the end of the day, Heroic and FlipSid3 Tactics came out on top of their groups, which seeds them directly to the semifinals and gives them Saturday off.
Heroic starts off strong
Friday's action began with Heroic taking on the newly formed organization qwerty. It was all Heroic from the start, as they got off to an early 6-1 lead and never looked back. While qwerty did try to make things a bit interesting in the second half with a string of four straight round wins, it was too little, too late as Heroic finished the series with a 16-8 win. Despite the loss, Simon "atter" Atterstam had a nice showing with his new team, posting a 25/20 KD and team-high 103.7 ADR.
With Team LDLC.com making short work of Fnatic Academy in a quick 16-5 win on Dust 2, the table was set for a Group A winners match between LDLC and Heroic. For good portions of this series, it looked as though LDLC would pull off an upset win, at one point leading the series 13-8. Kevin "Ex6TenZ" Droolans was the catalyst for the LDLC renaissance before Heroic decided to turn up the heat. Marco "Snappi" Pfeiffer stepped up in a big way late in the second half to help his team win eight straight rounds and ride a close 16-13 win into the semifinals.
FlipSid3 Tactics squeaks into the playoffs
FlipSid3's road to the semifinals was a bit rockier than Heroic's, but they still managed to get through nonetheless. FlipSid3 started out by playing the other new kids on the block, BIG. Unfortunately for the new all-German team, they failed to live up to their name and played small. FlipSid3 pushed out to a 7-0 lead and essentially coasted all the way to a victory. BIG tried to make it a bit of a game in the second half with five straight round wins, but it was too late. Denis "electronic" Sharipov led the way for his team with a 27/16 KD and 97.8 ADR, both game highs, in the win.
The Russian squad of Vega Squadron picked up a narrow victory over Rogue to set up a matchup between them and FlipSid3 on the winners side of Group B. The first half of this one was a bit odd as both sides made tremendous runs at different moments of the game. Vega started off the series with four round wins before FlipSid3 then won eight of their own. From this point on, it was a true tug-of-war between these two teams, with Vega Squadron seemingly breaking ahead with a 14-12 lead. FlipSid3 flipped the momentum on its head, however, winning the remaining four rounds to avoid overtime and claim the series win. Georgi "WorldEdit" Yaskin was the star in the match, dropping a whopping 30 kills to just 19 deaths and posting an even 100 ADR.
With FlipSid3 and Heroic earning spots in the semifinals, the other four teams will have to now battle it out to earn the final two spots. Day 2 will kick off at 6 a.m. ET with qwerty taking on Fnatic Academy, which will then be followed by series matchup between BIG and Rogue.
