After a tough 2-0 defeat to Virtus.pro's Russian roster in the Group B lower bracket semi-finals, our Main team, led by newly appointed in-game leader Casper 'cadiaN' Møller, was eliminated from the prestigious IEM Rio 2024 LAN event.
Despite starting the tournament with a much-needed win in a closely fought best-of-one duel against Eternal Fire, our time in the Brazilian metropolis didn't go as planned.
cadiaN: Now, for the first time, we can go home and actually have good time to practice for the next tournament. That’s going to be very beneficial for us.
After the initial win in the opening round, the team struggled on the server, falling to HEROIC in the upper semi-finals and then facing a hard-fought loss to Virtus.pro in the lower bracket.
Despite not being anywhere near peak form, our players rallied near the end of the first half against Petr 'fame' Bolyshev and his squad.
Trailing 7-2, our boys closed the gap to 7-5 heading into the second half. Virtus.pro reached map point at 12-8 on their T-side, but our Danish quintet fought back heroically to force overtime.
It took double OT for the opponents to finally close out our map pick after wasting five map points.
"I struggled a bit personally, especially on Ancient, and that definitely didn’t make things easier for us. They (Virtus.pro, ed.) were pretty good at having some rounds where they stressed middle and ran a quick pace out A, creating situations where we either needed to stay calmer or contest mid earlier," cadiaN said in the post-match interview.
Mirage was just as intense, with a 6-6 scoreline at halftime.
However, once again, our T-side lacked the necessary tactical vision, ultimately falling 13-9 and being sent packing from IEM Rio.
It's still very early days for our newly readjusted roster, but we've already seen glimpses of positive plays, both as a unit and individually, in Rio. cadiaN was asked on the official stream for his thoughts on our team's overall performance at Rio, and here’s what our captain had to say:
"It's been a bit of a rollercoaster, because obviously, when you face Heroic in that situation, it was a pretty good chance for reaching playoffs. But truth be told, when you lose 2-0 there and 2-0 here, close maps or not, you don't earn a spot. So, I think there's still plenty of work for us to do," cadiaN said.
"I see a lot of glimpses of what we want to do and how we want to do it, but I also see some shakiness because many things are pretty new for a lot of us. Now, for the first time, we can go home and actually have good time to practice for the next tournament. That’s going to be very beneficial for us."
"Getting thrown into all this quickly, with two big tournaments lined up one after another, we only had a total of 7 days of practice. It's very difficult, especially when you're playing a wide variety of maps. But I think today, versus Virtus.pro, especially compared to the Heroic game, we played with a lot more determination and assertiveness. Individually, people were making better plans and doing really good stuff. So yeah, it sucks, but I think we're just not there yet," our IGL said.
Jakob 'jabbi' Nygaard
Martin 'stavn' Lund
Victor 'Staehr' Staehr
Nicolai 'device' Reedtz
Casper 'cadiaN' Møller
Next up for the Main team is the BLAST Premier World Final 2024.
This major LAN event in Singapore takes place from Oct 30th to Nov 3rd, 2024, where 8 teams will battle for an impressive $1,000,000 prize pool.
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