IEM Sydney 2023 Recap: FaZe defeat Complexity in IEM Sydney Grand Finals
Counter-Strike 2’s (CS2) first major event has concluded, and it gave us some amazing moments and matches. The new MR12 system that was implemented in CS2 made the games go much faster and matches did not last three to four hours instead averaging around two hours per matches that went all three maps.
FaZe won the event, 2-1 over Complexity in a thrilling grand final that gave us a taste of the new era of professional Counter-Strike. Håvard “rain” Nygaard was named 1XBET/HLTV MVP for the event having a 1.2 rating average throughout the event. His teammate Robin “ropz” Kool was named the ESLProTour DHL MVP of IEM Sydney as well.
The final map of the series Ancient went to double overtime with FaZe edging out the win, 19-16 to take home the trophy.
Complexity and BetBoom were the two surprise performers during the event with Complexity reaching their first grand final in organization history. BetBoom took down teams like Vitality and GamerLegion with the help of former Cloud9 rifler Vladislav “nafany” Gorshkov. The Russian team looked elite in CS2 performing to a level that no one could have seen coming and slowly became the dark horse of the competition.
Teams like Vitality, Natus Vincere (NAVI), Cloud9 had good but disappointing showings at IEM Sydney.
Vitality really felt the loss of their coach Danny “zonic” Sørensen being the first team eliminated by losing to BetBoom and then FaZe knocking them out early in CS2’s first major event. Fans are hoping that this is not a long-term state as we won’t see this team play until the BLAST Fall Final which is a month away.
Natus Vincere performed good for the situation that they were thrown into due to outside forces. Their star player Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev was unable to make the event due to visa issues causing their coach to step in and replace him.
Cloud9 still did not look up to their usual self losing to Fnatic in their first match and getting their only series win in the event by beating Lynn Vision. Cloud9 would be eliminated by Complexity getting blown out in map three, 13-3 on Inferno.
The next events coming up are the CS2 Asia Championships on Nov. 8 and the BLAST Fall Final which starts on Nov. 22.
