FunPlus Phoenix edge over Guild Esports with a 2-1 victory

The second day of VCT 2021 - Stage 1 - Europe Masters had Guild Esports taking on FunPlus Phoenix in the tournament’s Upper Bracket semi final in Group B. Both teams come into the game following a 5 game winning streak with FPX in particular grabbing victories over the likes of Fnatic, Team Liquid, and Alliance.

FunPlus Phoenix kicked off the game taking the first round off of Guild, and continued to snowball their early lead to win the second round off the bat. Tobias "ShadoW" Flodström had 5 kills on the board already from these two rounds alone, leaving his mark on the series and impacting the map with his Skye.

FPX carried over the momentum to win the third round in a row, following a close quarters 2v2 combat where Andrey "Shao" Kiprsky and Dmitriy "dimasick" Matvienko got the upper hand with enough time on the clock to defuse the spike. The fourth round kicked off with Pontus "Zyppan" Eek shutting down draken and Guild’s aggressive push, opening up the map and giving his team a 5v4 advantage which eventually translated to a flawless round.

The two teams went back and forth for the 9th and 10th rounds, taking the result to 5-5. After an outstanding round from dimasick, FPX got an edge over their opponents for the following two rounds, making it 7-5. Fast forward to the 14th round, Yacine "Yacine" Laghmari’s deadly Raze registered 4 kills to bring his team back into the game once again and equalize the score once again to 7-7.

With the spike planted on A side, and only ShadoW and Zyppan alive from FPX’s side against three Guild members, the score was looking like it would go 10-7 towards the latter team. However, an impressive double from Zyppan with ShadoW protecting his partner by taking out Sayf from the rafters allowed FPX to bring the score to 9-8.

After a heart pumping round, Guild extended their lead to 11-9 after a strong B-site hold with Malkolm "bonkar" Rench running in circles around FPX players till the clock ticked down, denying the opposition the pleasure of planting the spike. Finally, Guild won the game, taking map 1, Split, off their opponents.

FunPlus Phoenix went into the second map, Ascent, looking for redemption. They steamrolled their way to 8 straight round wins, keeping Guild trying to find something to stop their momentum. After a close 1v1 between Kirill "ANGE1" Karasiow and Sayf, the latter won the duel, giving his team the first round on the board.

Unfortunately, this was only 1 of 4 rounds in total Guild managed to take off of FunPlus Phoenix. The final round ended with dimasick outplaying Sayf’s Killjoy and her bots to take the game to the third map, Icebox. A dominant victory was everything the team needed for high morale, and reminded everyone what FPX is all about after a shaky map 1 performance.

Once again, in a similar style to their performance on Ascent, FunPlus Phoenix continued choking out Guild on Icebox, pushing their lead to 7-1 after brilliant rounds from ShadoW and Shao. They managed to maintain their lead and keep their opponents on the backpedal, pushing the result to 10-1 till William "draken" Sundin stole a round to his team, making it 10-2.

It wasn’t enough to trigger a comeback considering how behind they were, and the pressure of winning over 8 rounds in a row to even equalize the score. FunPlus Phoenix kept their head in the game following the first map’s loss, and won Ascent and Icebox in convincing fashion to edge over Guild Esports to Group B’s Upper Bracket Final.

VCT 2021 - Stage 1 - Europe Masters

Guild Esports

1

X

2

FunPlus Phoenix

Group B - Opening Match, Best of 3 - March 13, 2021 - 4:00PM

13

Split

10

4

Ascent

13

2

Icebox

13

Guild Esports

player

Rating

ACS

K/D/A

+/-

K/D

KAST

ADR

HS%

FBSR

FB

FD

Sayf

1.08

225

43/43/13

0

1.00

0.0%

150.8

14%

64%

7

4

Leo

1.01

213

41/44/15

-3

0.93

0.0%

139.9

17%

80%

4

1

Yacine

0.85

206

35/51/18

-16

0.69

0.0%

142.4

18%

30%

6

14

bonkar

0.82

156

29/45/21

-16

0.64

0.0%

98.1

19%

29%

2

5

draken

0.81

186

33/48/10

-15

0.69

0.0%

135.6

33%

42%

5

7

FunPlus Phoenix

player

Rating

ACS

K/D/A

+/-

K/D

KAST

ADR

HS%

FBSR

FB

FD

ShadoW

1.64

293

58/33/26

+25

1.76

0.0%

158.3

19%

57%

4

3

Zyppan

1.22

253

46/38/17

+8

1.21

0.0%

149.9

25%

58%

7

5

Shao

1.16

207

41/28/18

+13

1.46

0.0%

149.3

24%

57%

4

3

dimasick

1.15

218

46/39/16

+7

1.18

0.0%

136.4

25%

62%

8

5

ANGE1

0.96

209

40/43/12

-3

0.93

0.0%

144.8

33%

50%

8

8