ELEAGUE Major 2018 grand finals may shock you
An unexpected end to the world championship ELEAGUE Major 2018. There seems to have been a big change in the balance before the big finals.
Cloud9 came from behind to beat FaZe 2-1 and win ELEAGUE Major Boston (14-16 on Mirage, 16-10 on Overpass and 22-19 on Inferno).
The Europeans knew they had a mountain to climb to overcome the huge deficit, but they refused to throw in the towel, winning the pistol round after a trio of quick kills from rain had put them in a 5v2 situation. Cloud9 rallied back instantly on a force-buy, however, after hitting the B site on the back timely kill from Jake “Stewie2K” Yip, with Skadoodlefollowing that up with a 1v3 clutch in the next round.
Cloud9 went on to reach map point, but then FaZe responded with a series of rounds to ensure that their opponents would not find the win gift-wrapped. At 8-15, Nikola “NiKo” Kovačfinally showed up in the server, picking up three quick kills in B to help his team to overturn a 3v4 situation that could have cost them the map. But a comeback was not on the cards: with triple-kill from Tarik “tarik” Celik in an A execution, the North Americans won the last round they needed taking the series to a third map.
Carrying their momentum into Inferno, Cloud9 strolled to a 5-1 lead on the Terrorist side despite losing the pistol round. FaZethen picked up the pace and overcame the deficit after giving their opponents very little room to operate, with the North Americans struggling to find openers. Down 5-8, Cloud9manage to win the final two rounds of the half thanks to key plays from Skadoodle.
FaZe came from the break looking the livelier of the two sides and quickly hit 14 rounds after shutting down any chances of Cloud9 building up an economy. The North Americans then finally strung two rounds together, but they could not prevent FaZe from reaching match point after NiKo had opened up the B site with two kills in banana.
With just a sliver of hope, Cloud9 turned to Stewie2K, who came up huge time and time again in B to inspire his team to take the game to overtime.
The first overtime could not determine a winner as both teams won all three rounds on the CT side, with FaZe coming back from a 15-18 deficit to restore parity once more. Cloud9 would not let that setback get to them however, and a tarik ace in B was the catalyst for a great run that saw the North Americans win the highly-coveted Major title.
Cloud9 captain Tarik “tarik” Celik is the recipient of the Most Valuable Player (MVP) award of ELEAGUE Major Boston by HLTV.org & Betway.
The 21-year-old edged out teammates Will “RUSH” Wierzba and Timothy “autimatic” Ta for the honour after a great showing in the final, in which he was Cloud9’s top performer in their map wins, especially on Inferno, where he had a 1.43 Rating (+13KDD).
Tarik “tarik” Celik, who had the highest tournament rating of his team (1.22), had also acquitted himself really well against both G2 (1.29) and SK (1.25), while in the Swiss stage he had only had one below-average rating.
