The second day of Intel Extreme Masters Katowice's Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament is over -- the playoff teams are set. All three teams ended the day 3-2, with Heroic on top to secure a semifinal spot, while North and Natus Vincere advanced to the quarterfinals.
Heroic came out the gate to overall unimpressive results after its first three games were over. A 19-17 overtime win against North was nice, despite a rough first half, but in the next two games Heroic only won a total of 12 rounds against Cloud9 and SK Gaming combined. It lost those matches 16-7 and 16-5, respectively. Yet, somehow the team stabilized to finish strong. Facing off against Na'Vi on Overpass and the home team, Virtus.pro, on Nuke, Heroic took close wins of 16-12 and 16-14 to finish with a 3-2 record.
While North started off with the tough overtime loss to Heroic to open its slate of games, the Danes showed off its resolve to win three straight. A matchup against Virtus.pro saw North with 10-5 halftime lead, and while VP tried to make a game of it, North held on for the 16-13 win to even its record at 1-1. The next two games were both taken by North with scores of 16-12 against Na'Vi and Cloud9; Kristian "k0nfig" Wienecke led the way with a combined 50/36 KD (kills/deaths). With Heroic already finishing up the day with a 3-2 record, North had a chance to win the group with a win over SK in its final game. Unfortunately for the Danes, SK, despite already having been eliminated, trounced North 16-8. This left North also sitting at a 3-2 record to end the group stage as well.
Na'Vi raced out to a 2-0 record after handily winning its first two games of the day. A strong 16-9 victory over VP in the first match of the day led to a 16-12 win over SK Gaming, but the next two games didn't play out as planned. Na'Vi lost to both Heroic and North by scores of 16-12 to drop its record down an even 2-2. This set up a clash with Cloud9, also 2-2, to decide which team would likely advance from the group stage. The game wasn't even close -- Na'Vi rode Ioann "Edward" Sukhariev's 21/17 KD and 106.4 ADR (average damage per round) to a breezy 16-6 victory, giving Na'Vi the third 3-2 finish of Group B.
With Heroic, North and Na'Vi all finishing with a 3-2 record, it was time once again to break out the tiebreakers, although this one ended up being much less complicated than Group A. Since Heroic owned victories over both North and Na'Vi, it locked up the number one spot on head-to-head record alone. North also beat Na'Vi, which decided the order of the final two spots of Group B. Cloud9, Virtus.pro and SK Gaming all finished with 2-3 records while just narrowly missing the playoffs.
With the group stages in the bag, it's now time to look towards the playoffs. The quarterfinals will kick off tomorrow at 6:45 AM EST with Astralis taking on Na'Vi, followed by North and Immortals duking it out for the last spot in the semifinals.