The last match of the 2-day tournament inside Thon Hotel Oslo Airport was a brawl as the Bulgarian team Acend faced off against home team Metizport. Acend had, unlike Metizport, not finished first in their group and had played their elimination game the day before versus Infurity Gaming, a match they were able to finish in a 2-0 fashion. The five Bulgarians then won against ReThink and Phantom Esports before finding themselves in the Grand Finals together with Metizport.
On the first map of Dust2, Acend’s map pick, Metizport were able to run away with a 13-11 victory after great performances from the trio Plopski, Dragon & captain Jackinho. On the second map of Inferno, Metizport’s pick, Jackinho and the team started relatively strong on the attacking side by taking six rounds and going into the defending side on a 6-6 halftime score. The Bulgarians, however, showed no mercy and quickly brought the score to 11-7 in their favor. Metizport were able to bring it back in the end to 12-11, but in the last round the defenses fell and Acend claimed the second map victory with a 13-11 score.
On the decider map of Overpass, Metizport had a nightmare start as the defending side and only brought three rounds over to the T-side. Despite a great effort of clawing their way back with five rounds, Acend’s defenses were too strong and they were able to close out the match 13-8, winning the series 2-1 and hoisting the gold medal. Head Coach Vincent “vinS” Jozefiak had to accept defeat and go home with $1,600 in prize money as well as a second place trophy, but the 27-year-old was still positive and showed appreciation toward his men.
“…overall I want to say im proud of my team. We are improving, especially Jackinho. Our T-sides were much better than before and I feel that Jack is improving a lot as a IGL. Time to fix CT-sides and finish the map pool.”
The team travels home from Oslo today and will have a week’s break from official matches, before heading back into action on March 1st in $50,000 CCT and $10,000 Exort Meteor.