Cloud9 lose to BIG with a stand-in. They finish in the top 4. BIG will face FaZe Clan in the Grand finals of the $250,000 tournament.
In a surprising turn of events, BIG Clan has defeated Cloud9 in the Roobet Cup 2022. This marks the first win for the German roster over nafany's troops. The team went from strength to strength, maintaining a solid lead throughout both maps. The key difference ended up being tiziaN and syrsoN's much higher than usual contributions.
For Cloud9, the team wasn't able to build on their success at Dallas. This time, they fell to a BIG roster with k1to standing in. They will have to show up in full force at IEM Cologne if they want to throw their hat into the ring for the battle for world number 1. At the Roobet Cup, their journey ends with a 3th-4th finish.
Map 1 - Dust2 - BIG's unstoppable attack
The series started on Dust2, BIG's perennial stomping grounds. This time, their dominance was beyond even their usual strength. The first half saw Cloud9 get completely blindsided by BIG's T side. The Germans were able to attack and take over both sites with ease, leading to a dominant 14-1 half. Cloud9's CT side failed to get going, despite some chances provided by their stars. Ax1le's deagle 3k on an eco stands out as perhaps the biggest missed conversion.
Coming out of the break, Cloud9 looked completely rejuvenated. The players were on point and the team got rolling, winning eight of the first nine rounds. But their failures from half one, came back to bite them as a small mistake in an eco round, left BIG on match-point. At that point Cloud9 needed a flawless 9 rounds in a row. A task that proved to be impossible in the end as tabseN's crew took the map 16-9.
Map 2 - Inferno - Veto to Victory
The second map Inferno is usually one of Cloud9's best. And more importantly, it's BIG's permaban for the last two years. In this game, however, Gob B and tabseN pulled out a karrigan-esque ace from up their sleeves. With their already unreadable setups due to the stand-in situation, a completely new map caught Cloud9 off-guard again.
BIG once again took an early lead, going 5-0 up on their defense. C9 finally got themselves on the board with an eco win, but in the end BIG emerged victorious after triplets of rounds were traded. Teh second half had BIG taking the pistol conversion again, but Cloud9 woke up early and took 6 rounds straight. Under fire from the C9 defense, tabseN led his team through the Inferno and wrapped up the game at 16-12.
Can BIG show up at Cologne?
BIG has now made the grand finals of the Roobet Cup 2022, their best result in the last year. With their home ground event of Cologne coming up, do they have enough in the tank to take the Cathedral of CS by storm?
That seems a bit of a stretch due to the current factors. BIG was playing without pressure with a stand-in, in an online setting that usually favors syrsoN's AWP. On top of that Cloud9 is coming off a S-tier LAN win, which means they are likely focusing on Cologne more than Roobet. With all this on the table, it seems unlikely that BIG will replicate this success, but maybe the hometown heroes can take the crown.
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