TSM dominate Renegades to set up semifinal matchup with Envy

Despite coming in as the lower seed, TSM began their First Strike run in style with a dominant victory over Renegades. The match saw three out of a possible four Skye picks, giving us a great introduction to the agent and what her potential impact can be. With the victory, TSM are set for a match against Envy in the semifinals on Saturday, while Renegades have been eliminated.

The teams started on Ascent, and immediately we had the pick - Chuck "CP2" Proud rolling out the first Skye we’ve seen yet. In addition, Devon "randyySAVAGE" Bréard was off his typical Sentinel role in favour of Sova. The pistol and follow-up went to the defending TSM, and Operator play from Matthew "WARDELL" Yu kept things in TSM’s favour. Taylor "drone" Johnson grabbed an ace on the anti-eco, and every member of TSM got in on the action as they took a quick 7-0 lead. Wardell continually found openings with his Operator, and Renegades were completely shut down. They’d end the half with only one round, an 11-1 score for TSM. A very close pistol round went to TSM off a clutch from Wardell, and they won the map, and Skye’s debut, in a dominant 13-1.

While Skye’s first map didn’t go well, each team selected it for Bind, with Stephen "reltuC" Cutler picking it up for TSM, who began on attack this time around. randyySAVAGE played Breach, giving Renegades a wealth of flashes to work with, and in addition to all this, neither team lined up with a Killjoy or Cypher. Despite a nice Skye-Jett set play down A short from TSM, CP2 clutched out the pistol for Renegades, but TSM scored an eco win with only pistols. After trading rifle rounds, TSM began pulling out into the lead. They consistently won their aim duels, and only let Renegades win 2 more rounds en route to an 8-4 lead at the half.

A messy pistol fight in Hookah went the way of TSM, and they also secured the next two, as Yassine "Subroza" Taoufik clutched the third round up against two Renegades players and a Skye ultimate. With TSM on match point, Renegades could only stave them off for one more round, as Wardell and James "hazed" Cobb won a 2v5 to take the map 13-5 and series 2-0.