Avangar secure IEM Katowice new challengers stage spot
AVANGAR faced off against Winstrike in the upper bracket final at the CIS Minor. Dust2 kicked off with AVANGAR on the CT-side, who won the pistol round thanks to double kills by Aidyn "KrizzeN" Turlybekov and Alexey "qikert" Golubev.
qikert got another double kill, this time in the first weapon round, and made it 3-0. David "n0rb3r7" Danielyan stopped AVANGAR's five round streak by picking up a triple kill in the sixth round and Winstrike went on to close the gap. A 1vs2 clutch by Kirill "Boombl4" Mikhailov gave Winstrike thier sixth but they couldn't tie up the game as they gave away opening kills to pistols in the following round.
Having finished the first half with a 9-6 lead, AVANGAR got to double digits thanks to KrizzeN's triple kill in the second pistol round. Winstrike couldn't show any presence on the CT-side and AVANGAR went on to win the map with a 16-6 scoreline.
n0rb3r7 began Train with a triple kill to give the T-sided Winstrike the pistol round victory. After Winstrike won the first three rounds, Timur "buster" Tulepov and KrizzeN won a 2vs2 to start a six round AVANGAR streak (6-3). buster got an ace in a 3vs5 to make it 7-4 and AVANGAR went on to win the half 11-4.
Bektiyar "fitch" Bahytov's 1vs2 clutch in the second pistol round extended AVANGAR’s lead to 12-4 but Winstrikeresponded swiftly by taking the following round after n0rb3r7opened it up with a Zeus kill (12-5). Winstrike won eight of the following nine rounds to tie the game at 13-13 and went on to get the 16-14 map victory.
AVANGAR had a great start on Mirage, where they were on the T-side, as they won the first seven rounds. Winstrike got on the scoreboard in the eighth round thanks to a triple kill by Georgi "WorldEdit" Yaskin. AVANGAR managed to win a 2vs4 in the tenth round and Ali "Jame" Djami clutched a 1vs3 in the twelfth round to make it 9-3. The Kazakhstani side picked up the last three rounds of the half and won it 12-3.
AVANGAR lost the first four rounds in the second half but bounced back to get the 16-7 map victory, winning the series 2-1. With this result, AVANGAR have qualified for the IEM Katowice Major's New Challengers Stage while Winstrike will face Spirit in the consolidation final for another chance to qualify.
