Review of ICE Challenge 2020. Perfecto’s debut, Virtus.pro’s fiasco and 1-5 clutch by chrisJ

ICE Challenge 2020 happened in the way we had predicted in our preview.

Teams that did not meet the expectations

ENCE

One of the teams whose results we did not guess was the Finnish team ENCE. The roster has not been able to reach a good shape for a long time and, consequently, their performance at ICE Challenge 2020 was ended pretty soon. The players got to an easier group and had a chance to make it to the playoff but their meeting with OG and GODSENT was not successful. The Finnish esportsmen were not able to win any map at both meetings and took the 7-8 place. Their monetary reward was $2,500. Taking into account their recent results, it is not a big surprise but sportsbook experts as well as we supposed that ENCE could make at least to Top 6 and continue their performance at the playoff. The supposition was inaccurate.

Heroic

The Danish players from Heroic, as well as ENCE, could not meet our expectations and make it to the final stage of the tournament which could be much easier than at regular championships. At the last events, es3tag and his teammates were performing pretty well and nothing meant trouble. Nevertheless, the team was not able to beat Virtus.pro and MAD Lions, and it led to the situation when the players became some of the first to leave the championship. Heroic took the 7-8 place in the tournament bracket and their monetary reward was $2,500.

Teams that performed as it had been expected

OG

In our preview, we supposed that OG could take 5-6 place and we were not out of pocket. At the group stage, the Europeans managed to beat their opponents from ENCE but could not oppose to ‘Born to Win’. As a result, NBK- and his teammates passed to the quarterfinal and MAD Lions is the team that marked a decisive end to OG’s performance at the tournament. The efforts of the European mix brought a monetary award of $10,000 to the players.

Virtus.pro

Virtus.pro managed to make it to the playoff easily and that was the end of the team’s success at the tournament. At the initial stage, the players beat Heroic 2-0, the battle with mousesports resulted in the same way. There, by the way, the esportsmen had a good battle and the second map moved the team closer to victory but it ended up with 16-14 for mouz. At the quarterfinal, Virtus.pro could not cope with GODSENT’s power and, consequently, the players lost a match for passing to the semifinal and took the 5-6 place at the tournament bracket. Their hard work brought $10,000 to the Kazakh.

NAVI

The experts from sportsbook companies put Natus Vincere to the list of favorites along with their main opponents from mousesports. The odds for their win at the outright bets were equal to 3,75 as well as in the case with mouz. From the very beginning, we were saying that we did not agree with this opinion but we could explain it with NAVI’s big fan base throughout the world. Everything happened as we had expected. Natus Vincere made it to the grand final and did not become the champions of the competition. At the group stage, they got to Group B and defeated GODSENT with the score of 2-1 and OG with the score of 2-0. Thanks to two wins, Natus Vincere succeeded in passing to the semifinal. There they met with GODSENT again and that time they were beaten 2-0. At the grand final, ‘Born to Win’ confronted their main opponents from mouz and won Train with pain and misery. The scanty map pool and the recent changes affected their fight at the Bo5 battle and after that, NAVI lost the final match. We should mark that when Perfecto joined the team, Natus Vincere’s game refreshed. It was also influenced by the change of positions in the roster. Now s1mple is the main sniper in the team. Even though the team is going to achieve good teamwork with Perfecto now but it was clear that their game got much better than it was with GuardiaN. The debut for Illya was quite successful and he managed to make it to the final of a major tournament as well as Boombl4. Having become the silver finalists, NAVI earned a monetary reward of $50,000.

mousesports

Ropz and his teammates were considered to be the main favorite both in our opinion and according to the experts from sportsbook companies. Everything happened in a pretty predictable way. mouz did not find equal opponents and lost only two maps and it happened only at the final stage of the tournament. In the group stage, mousesports defeated MAD Lions and Virtus.pro with the score 2-0 and thanks to that they passed to the semifinal and the players were waiting for the results of the meeting between OG and MAD Lions to play the winners of the battle. Surprisingly enough, the meeting against MAD Lions at the match for passing to the final was not so smooth as it had been expected. The first map ended up well for MAD Lions but after that mouz managed to pull themselves together and won the other two. At the grand final, they fought with Natus Vincere. The match had several bright moments that surprised the audience. For example, chrisJ showed that you should not give up at any difficult situation even though you are left 1 in 5 and everything you can use to beat your opponents is AWP and there are only 40 seconds before the end of the round.

As a result, mouz defeated ‘Born to Win’ with the score of 3-1 and won another trophy and $125,000 as a bonus.

In an interview, Ropz said that the championship was a great exercise to warm up before the upcoming tournaments. Apparently, ICE Challenge 2020 could not be a real challenge for the Europeans which could not be said about IEM Katowice 2020, the next tournament where mousesports will perform. His prize pool, by the way, will consist of $500,000 and the participants like Astralis, Team Vitality, Team Liquid and others will definitely make the Europeans from mouz pull up their socks.

Participants that surpassed the expectations

MAD Lions

Who could think that one of the main outsiders of the tournament that had the highest win odds could not only make it to the playoff but pass to the semifinal? And we could! You could get to know it thank to reading our preview where we told that MAD Lions were likely to use a lack of awareness of the opponents. In the group stage, the Danish lost a battle with mousesports but beat their countrymen Heroic in a fight for the playoff. At the quarterfinal, they defeated OG 16-12 and won the first map in a fight with mousesports. Unfortunately for HUNDEN and his teammates, MAD Lions’ winning series ended up. MAD Lions managed to surprise the audience with their performance for sure and they took the 3-4 place at the tournament bracket. Their efforts resulted in a monetary reward of $25,000.

GODSENT

While making a supposition about the event, when we were speaking about GODSENT, we did not guess only one thing. We assumed that the Swedish would have to work hard to make it to the semifinal and, practically, Maikelele who was ignored by everybody before the start of the tournament reached the 3-4 place easily. In the group stage, GODSENT lost a battle with NAVI as it had been expected but managed to win one map and were two steps away from winning the last one. At the quarterfinal, the players were confronting Virtus.pro that was not ready to such a performance from the Swedish. Due to this reason, the latter gained an easy win 2-0 and played Natus Vincere at the semifinal. ‘Born to Win’ understood the mistakes at the previous meeting with Maikelele that took place in the group stage and beat the opponents 2-0. As a result, GODSENT took the 3-4 place in the championship and earned $25,000. Along with it, the esportsmen became a team that turned out to be the most surprising among all the contestants.

Results of the tournament

• 1 place: mousesports — $125,000
• 2 place: Natus Vincere — $50,000
• 3-4 place: MAD Lions — $25,000
• 3-4 place: GODSENT — $25,000
• 5-6 place: OG — $10,000
• 5-6 place: Virtus.pro — $10,000
• 7-8 place: Heroic — $2,500
• 7-8 place: ENCE — $2,500