IEM Global Challenge: Can Vitality Close Out 2020 In Style?
2020 has been a rough year for virtually everybody, and esports have not been spared of tough moments either. This year, the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) scene has suffered a number of blows. Losing talented players to VALORANT, the North American scene has been decimated and almost reduced to rubble. Dozens of coaches have been temporarily banned from the scene after abusing a coaching bug in-game. Worst of all, there hasn’t been a single LAN tournament for the likes of Astralis, Liquid, and Natus Vincere ever since Katowice 2020.
The IEM Global Challenge doesn’t change that, but at least it holds a special place in this unusual event calendar. Offering $500,000 to the attending teams, the tournament is also the last one to be held this year. While it is still just an online event, this is the one to beat right before going offline for the winter break. All of the teams in attendance have made their marks on the scene in recent months, but only a few of them have a real shot at making first place here.
Natus Vincere and Team Vitality are the most dangerous squads at this event. The Frenchmen have recently won IEM Beijing after reverse-sweeping NaVi in the Grand Finals. When the two sides met once more at the BLAST Premier: Fall Finals, Vitality scraped past them again by the tiniest of margins. Fortunately for us, the two teams have been split up into separate groups, giving the other teams ample time to attack before the favourites face each other again.
But what about the other rosters? Is there actually a way for them to make it past these two super-teams? Complexity Gaming and BIG will have a tough time in Group A if they actually want to make playoffs. Both have recently lost to Vitality, and now that Complexity are fighting without the support of Valentin “poizon” Vasilev, they don’t stand a chance. As of now, their replacement AWPer has not been revealed, but even if they were to secure a top-tier sniper, there’s no real way to integrate them well before the Group Stage kicks off.
BIG have been in a self-proclaimed slump as of late. Johannes “tabseN” Wodarz admitted this in an interview with HLTV recently, but the team has still achieved some notable finishes in recent time - just not those trophy runs they pulled off during the summer. However, the way they struggled against the likes of OG, Virtus.pro, and G2 makes it unlikely for them to be able to strike down either Vitality or Astralis. BIG and Complexity are stuck in this group with two incredibly strong teams and while Astralis might not be able to secure the first place in Group A, they look poised to make it out at least in the Decider Match.
The Group B playing field leaves a little breathing room for Heroic, FURIA, and Team Liquid. While Natus Vincere are a safe bet for the playoffs, the other three are much closer in terms of skill level and form right now. Just two months ago, Heroic would have been the obvious bet in this constellation, but at the BLAST Premier: Fall Showdown, they lost to mousesports early on. During DreamHack Masters Winter, they were then upset by GODSENT. While that doesn’t rule them out, the FURIA upset is just waiting to happen. The explosive playstyle of the Brazilians is incredibly difficult to counter, and they have become somewhat of an Achilles heel for Team Liquid as well. On every occasion in the last few months, FURIA have locked in the win over Jake “Stewie2k” Yip and his men.
So Liquid really have to survive in their Opening Match versus Heroic. With all their might, FURIA will still not make it against Natus Vincere if the CIS team can keep it together. This means that if Liquid drop down into the Losers’ Match already, their confidence will be gone and FURIA will have a great time stomping them into the ground.
Natus Vincere are the latest team to jump on the six-man roster train. Going into the BLAST Premier: Fall Finals, they added Valerii "B1T" Vakhovskyi to the main lineup in an effort to diversify their gameplay. While they did win their opening match over Astralis, B1T really wasn’t the one who made that happen. He was brought in for Inferno, where Astralis powered through a fantastic CT side to win on a 16-14 scoreline. B1T finished the map with a 0.62 rating and just 13 kills. In fairness, this was his first outing against a team of Astralis’ calibre. He will get another chance to prove himself fairly soon. However, Natus Vincere were hesitant to bring him out again when they faced Vitality at the Fall Finals. They still lost out on two overtime maps, but their sixth man would probably have cost them the game much sooner.
So their new tactic isn’t quite ready for prime-time just yet. Given that B1T was brought in on relatively short notice, their six-man roster will probably only really come to fruition in the coming year. Meanwhile, Lucas “Bubzkji” Andersen seems to be doing an okay job for the Danish side, whereas Nabil “Nivera” Benrlitom continues to kick bottoms on the Vitality roster. Even though nothing is ever safe in the online realm, Vitality are looking towards yet another tournament victory to close this year out in style.
Images via ESL