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We continue to follow the action at Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 Europe RMR A - the main qualifying tournament of this autumn. We are talking about the European region, where we expect the toughest battle among all regions.
Let me remind you that 7 slots for Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 are at stake. FaZe and Cloud9 are among the contenders for the next CS Major.
We are trying to figure out who from the pair Cloud9 - FaZe Clan will be stronger in this match and earn the first victory on the way to Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024.
Let's go.
FaZe Clan uniforms
Let's open the analysis of the match FaZe Clan - Cloud9 with the analysis of FaZe Clan's form. In this match the European club will play the first number with odds to win at 1.6.
From the main achievements of last season - getting into the top three at BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2023 and winning at ESL Pro League Season 17. Also this year FaZe received the award for the 4th season of Intel Grand Slam, enriched by $1,000,000.
Speaking of award tournaments, there was less luck here. Top-12 at IEM Rio 2023, and Top-4 at IEM Dallas 2023. At the only Major e in the season FaZe did not cope with the tension, but made it to TOP-8.
Before the Long Conference IEM Cologne 2023 they attended two tournaments of BLAST series: Spring Final 2023 and Fall Groups 2023. At the Finals they were ranked Top 6, and at the Fall Groups 2023 they were in the top three, earning themselves a slot at the Autumn Finals.
- FaZe Clan line-up: karrigan, rain, Frozen, ropz, broky.
Despite the ubiquitous Reshuffle and rather "average" results for the year, FaZe didn't change the main roster. However, there were some substitutions: FaZe presented a new coach, who became the legendary Pole NEO. On his post he replaced the legendary RobbaN and it affected FaZe's gameplay in IEM Cologne 2023, where FaZe took the top-12.
The setbacks continued from there onwards. At Gamers8 2023 FaZe Clan took a similar place (9-12), Ledgeiv at the Long Segment of the Vp tournament with the score 2-0.
Things didn't go too well at ESL Pro League Season 18. FaZe made it to the play-offs on the top grid of Group C, defeating 9Z Team and Fnatic, but in the match for seeding in the main stage they lost to NaVi with the score 0-2. However, FaZe didn't manage to play long at ESL Pro League Season 18: in the first play-offs match, which for FaZe started from the second stage, the team met MOUZ. The future EPL champions sent FaZe Clan home. As a result FaZe found themselves on the 9-12th place of the top tournament.
FaZe rehabilitated quite quickly. Already at IEM Sydney 2023 they triumphed with the victory over CoL in the grand final.
Thunderpick World Championship 2023 FaZe Clan have a great time. The titular European club passed the group stage without problems becoming the best team of the quartet B, and then took part in the play-offs of the championship.
The first opponent for FaZe in the play-offs of Thunderpick World Championship 2023 was MOUZ. A serious opponent, but FaZe coped with it: 2-1 in favour of the champions of IEM Sydney 2023.
At CS Asia Championship 2023 FaZe confidently made it to the play-offs through Group B. Having taken the unquestionable TOP-1 position the team went directly to the semi-finals of the tournament. FaZe then went head-to-head: first they defeated ENCE 2-1 and in the grand final they defeated MOUZ 2-0.
One of the most stable teams of the season has a pretty extensive record in the first half of the year. However, it predominantly consists of "near" top results.
Among the main achievements - getting into the top three at BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2023 and winning at ESL Pro League Season 17. Also this year FaZe got the award for the 4th season of Intel Grand Slam, enriched by $1,000,000.
Speaking of award tournaments, there was less luck here. Top-12 at IEM Rio 2023, and Top-4 at IEM Dallas 2023. At the only Major e in the season FaZe couldn't cope with the tension, but made it to the TOP-8.
At CS Asia Championship 2024 FaZe confidently made it to the play-offs through Group B. Having taken unquestionable TOP-1 the team went directly to the semi-finals of the tournament. Then FaZe went head-to-head: first they defeated ENCE with the score 2-1 and in the grand final they won MOUZ with the score 2-0.
Next, FaZe had a series of "failures". They finished TOP-8 at EPL Season 19, TOP-6 at IEM Dallas 2024 and BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2024, TOP-8 at Esports World Cup 2024 and TOP-12 at BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024.
At IEM Cologne 2024, FaZe Long Sogpeg started off with a win over Team Liquid, but went on to Ledge or Vitality in the play-offs. After falling into the bottom set of IEM Cologne 2024, FaZe outscored Falcons 2-0, and then won their best match of the tournament in a bye, comingback against Liquid from a 3-12 deficit. However, the momentum was not enough: FaZe lost to sAw and left the tournament on top-6.
Later FaZe played at BLAST Premier: Fall Showdown 2024, where they took TOP-1-2.
At ESL Pro League S20 FaZe failed in the first round of Group A, losing to Sangal Esports, and then cameback through the middle set, beating FlyQuest, NiP. However, the comeback lasted for a long time, because after the meeting with CoL FaZe Clan left the championship on 12-18 lines.
After the failure at ESL Pro League S20, FaZe took the top 4 at BLAST Premier: Fall Finals 2024, and then - Intel Extreme Masters Rio 2024 with the final top 8.
BLAST Premier: World Final 2024 met in Group A, where they played to a 1-1 score. They first lost to MOUZ, but then snatched a win from NaVi in a match for life at the tournament. However, in the play-offs Ledgeili Team Spirit finished in the top 6.
Mapple FaZe Clan
The best team of FaZe is Mirage. They played 12 matches and won 9 of them.
Then there were Overpass with 8 matches and 5 wins. They play Nuke (7 matches, 4 wins), Inferno (9 matches, 5 wins). Worse is Ancient with 3 wins in 6 matches, and worst of all was Anubis. His FaZe was picked 7 times, but played with a winrate of 42%.
Not playing on Vertigo.
Cloud9's form.
Let's continue the analysis of the match Cloud9 - FaZe Clan with the analysis of C9 form. In this match they will play as an outsider with odds to win around 4.
C9 had a pretty intense 2023 season. "Cloudy" celebrated a passage to the grand finals of ESL Pro League Season 17 and a victory at the BLAST Premier: Spring European Showdown 2022.
In addition, the team won the commercial BB Playlist. Urbanistic. In April, C9 seriously stumbled: they lost two qualifications at BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 and missed the only Major of the season.
Next up was a top-4 finish at IEM Rio 2023 and a win at Brazy Party. Before IEM Cologne 2023, C9 failed at IEM Dallas 2023 (top-8) and BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2023 (top-8).
- Cloud9 lineup: ICY, Ax1Le, BoombI4, Perfecto, HeavyGod.
Before Gamers8 Cloud9 attended another major summer tournament - IEM Cologne 2023. The most prestigious event went well for Cloud9: not good, but not bad either.
A very difficult Long Corner in Cologne forced Cloud9 to mobilise all their resources in order not to drop out at the group stages, and these resources were enough until the first round of play-offs, where C9 were dealt with Vitality.
Next, C9 visited Gamers8, but even there everything was not so good. At the TOP-8 stage the team faced ENCE, and they were unable to do anything against the overclocked Finns. And that's how they ended up in the TOP-8.
In their debut match at EPL Season 18, Cloud9 played against Eternal Fire. The Turks, being a cheerful team on paper, failed to outplay C9 at least on one of the cards: the match ended with the score 2-0 (16-11 Vertigo, 16-12 Eternal Fire).
In the play-offs match C9 faced Complexity. Being the absolute favourite of the match, Cloud9 failed to give CoL a fight and lost 0-2.
Cloud9's failures didn't end there. After getting into the net of the last chance of EPL Season 18, Cloud9 lost 1-2 to Liquid in a rather lacklustre manner, thus failing to qualify for the play-offs of the prestigious tournament. At the end of EPL S18, C9 finished in the top 20, which, to put it mildly, is weak for a top-tier team, which C9 was labelled as by literally everyone.
However, before the IEM Sydney IEM Long Convergence, C9 managed to rehabilitate themselves a bit for their mediocre performance at the last TOP tournaments. C9 won the BLAST Premier: Fall European Showdown 2023, earning them a slot at the BLAST Autumn Finals.
Before competing at Thunderpick World Championship 2023, Cloud9 made an appearance at IEM Sydney 2023. It wasn't great there, as C9 failed to make it past the group stage, crashing out after losing to Complexity.
Thunderpick World Championship 2023 was C9's first tournament with BoombI4 officially as captain. It worked out pretty well: Cloud9 made it to the play-offs of the tournament and finished in the top 4, losing in the semi-finals to the future champions from FaZe with a 1-2 score.
At the end of the last season C9 played two BLAST tournaments. It was BLAST Premier Fall Final 2023 followed by Top 4 and Top 6 at BLAST Premier: World Finals 2024.
The first big tournament in 2024 for C9 was BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2024. There, the Cloudies had a rather mediocre performance with a final top-12 at the end of the tournament.
Their performance at PGL CS 2 Major Copenhagen 2024 was not the best either. There, C9 made it to the play-offs after a 3-1 score in the Elimination Stage, but then dropped out in the first match of the main stage after a 0-2 loss to Vitality.
They also attended IEM China 2024, where they finished in the top 9-12. Later, C9 finished in the top 13 at BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024. After that, the only title tournament where C9 played was BLAST Premier: Fall Showdown 2024, where Clouds finished in the top 16. After that, C9 played at the B-Tier Championships, but even there they couldn't boast of special results.
Thunderpick World 2024 started with a 0-2 defeat against MongolZ. However, they managed to comeback by beating 9Z. However, they didn't manage to go far, as C9 Ledge and Fnatic finished in the top 12.
Cloud9 Mappool
The best C9 map is Vertigo. There are 2 wins in 3 matches.
Next is Inferno. On Inferno Cloud9 played 5 times, of which they won 3 matches.
Minus winrate on 4 maps at once: Ancient (42% wins in 7 matches), Overpass (33% wins in 3 matches), Anubis (3 matches, 33% wins), Mirage (2 matches, 0 wins).
History of head-to-head meetings between Cloud9 and FaZe
In the season 2024 C9 and FaZe played each other twice and both matches were taken by FaZe.
Predicted result of the match FaZe - Cloud9 at Shanghai Major 2024 European RMR A
In this match I expect FaZe to win. Cloud9, who started out as a super team, quickly slipped somewhere in TIR-2, as their results show. FaZe don't shine with successes in the last half of the 2024 season either, but they should be trampled by C9.
Bottom line: FaZe win.
