This article is part of our CS:GO Recap series.
After two days of the group stages earlier in the week, the playoffs are officially underway at Intel Extreme Masters Sydney at Qudos Bank Arena. In front of a loud and ruckus Australian crowd, SK Gaming and FaZe Clan punched their tickets to the grand finals with a pair of vastly different semifinal series on Saturday.
SK Gaming makes short work of OpTic Gaming
SK Gaming kicked off the action on Saturday against OpTic Gaming, and in the opening game of the series, it looked like a mismatch. SK jumped out of the gate in Game 1 on Train thanks to flawless rotations, executions and fragging. Taking a 6-0 lead before OpTic even won a round, the game felt like a professional team playing against its practice squad. After OpTic mercifully won Round 7, SK went on a ridiculous 10-round win streak to take the map 16-1. Gabriel "FalleN" Toldeo led the way with his AWP, completely shutting down the Green Wall en route to a 19/6 KD (kills/deaths).
The one-sided play seemed to bleed into Game 2 on Overpass. SK continued to dominate the early rounds of the game, this time racing out to a 10-1 lead. OpTic didn't give up so easily in this game, though. The Green Wall put itself back together, securing six of the next seven rounds to climb back into the contest. At this point, SK's Marcelo "coldzera" David had enough, as he secured a quad kill in Round 19 to break through the Green Wall and put SK back on the path to victory. OpTic didn't win another round, as SK locked up the 16-7 win, moving on to yet another grand final.
FaZe Clan continues recent dominance over Astralis
While the first series of the day was incredibly one-sided, the second showdown between rivals FaZe Clan and Astralis gave fans something a bit more competitive. After the first half of Cobblestone, however, it certainly didn't feel like it was going to be close. On the back of Fabien "kioShiMa" Fiey, FaZe waltzed its way to a 12-3 lead at the half with picture perfect rounds on the T-side. The second half is where things got interesting, though. Taking 10 of the first 12 rounds to open the second half, Astralis managed to rally back with the help of some expertly place Molotovs to prevent multiple FaZe Clan bomb plants, which brought Astralis within just one round of FaZe. Sensing the pressure, FaZe managed to calm the tides just enough to secure the final two rounds needed to lock up the 16-13 win for the early 1-0 series lead.
The action moved over to Nuke for the second game, with Astralis getting off to the nice start, winning the pistol round. That was just the beginning of what turned into yet another fairly close match. Undeterred by the lackluster pistol round, FaZe took charge early with a 7-3 lead on the T-side of Nuke, only to see Astralis close the half strong with an impressive five-round streak to take an 8-7 lead at the half. The second half was more of the same from Astralis, who let Markus "Kjaerbye" Kjærbye take the lead, piling up a 30/15 KD to take the map 16-11 and force a decisive Game 3.
It all came down to Train, and once again FaZe came out of the gate firing on all cylinders, taking a quick 5-0 lead in the first half. The teams then traded sets of wins back and forth, with Astralis eventually crawling back from the early deficit to find themselves down just 9-6 at the break. All that momentum came to a crushing halt to start the second half, though, as FaZe dominated the early rounds to push all the way to a 14-6 lead and put its opponent on the brink of elimination. Astralis made things interesting with a few rounds wins, but it was Finn "karrigan" Andersen who came up with a massive 1-vs-1 clutch against his former team in Round 24 to put his team on a match point it would not relinquish. FaZe Clan is now 2-2 against Astralis at major tournaments, but has won the last two in a row.
The table is now set. SK Gaming and FaZe Clan will square off in a best-of-five series on Sunday where the winner will take home $100,000 and the IEM Sydney crown.
