Cloud9 were made to work for their Brazy Party CS:GO semifinal with the three-map series against OG featuring plenty of overtimes, multiple intense clutch moments, and a medical issue that saw a surprise stand-in for the Russian squad.
After narrow wins over Sprout and 9INE in the group stage, C9 dispatched quarterfinalists paiN Gaming 2-0 to book a semifinal against OG. Neither team was expecting the behemoth series that eventually awaited them on the event’s May 2 matchday—in all, it would take 98 rounds for a winner to emerge.
Neither team could be separated in the series opener on Inferno, with overtime needed to determine who held advantage—and it would fall with OG after a Vladislav “nafany” Gorshkov spray went wide of its mark in a moment the C9 captain will want to forget.
Now down a map, C9’s situation took a turn for the worse ahead of Overpass, with rifler HObbit needing to step away due to an eye problem that prevented him from continuing to play in the middle of the game.
With no time left and needing a fifth to continue, C9 was out of options. Out of desperation, they reached out to the one player most familiar with this iteration of the CS:GO squad—a player who was controversially ousted from the roster after a failed IEM Rio Major campaign: Timofey “interz” Yakushin.
Related: CS:GO caster calls out Cloud9 for trying to ‘scapegoat’ one player
Interz has been riding the pine for the better part of five months following his removal, but in his old squad’s moment of need, he answered the call. The support rifler was all class in his return, posting a 17-kill, 1.16 HLTV rating performance in a 16-11 win on Overpass.
As brief as his return was, interz thanked his old team and stepped immediately out again as HObbit returned. While still not 100 percent, HObbit made a crucial clutch play in the final round of regulation to force overtime.
HObbit jumped onto the bomb to defuse, but was left alone to win the round as OG sniper Degster took down Timur ‘buster’ Tulepov. Yet neither degster nor Adam “NEOFRAG” Zouhar swung to eliminate HObbit, believing buster to be the defuser. HObbit held his nerve, stuck the defuse, and forced overtime once more.
OG’s blunder proved catastrophic. C9 rallied behind a 35-kill effort from Ax1Le to win Ancient 19-16 and the series 2-1, eliminating the European team.
Related: The full schedule for the BLAST Paris CS:GO Major
C9’s win sees them meet Astralis in the $333,000 final on May 3. Neither team qualified for the May 6 Major, with both falling tantalizingly short of spots at Paris and thus both will want to end their seasons on a high ahead of the next player break.
