The final day of Intel Extreme Masters Sydney saw SK Gaming and FaZe Clan face off in an exciting series in the Qudos Bank Arena. SK continued its domination of the tournament with another strong performance, taking a 3-1 win to bring home the IEM Sydney crown and the $100,000 prize. Here's how the grand finals went down.
The series began with an extremely one-sided start on Train. SK took the pistol round on the back of a triple kill from Marcelo "coldzera" David, turning that into an early 3-0 lead. FaZe finally got on the board with a win in Round 4, but that proved to be just one of three rounds it secured in the first half. Despite taking the 12-3 lead into the half, FaZe battled back incredibly hard to make things interesting in the second half. FaZe's Finn "karrigan" Andersen was on top of his game as FaZe went on a 10-2 run to open up the half. At that point, though, SK in-game leader Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo helped bring back the final two rounds for a 16-12 SK win.
The series moved to Cache for Game 2, where FaZe had a much better start than it did in Game 1. This time it was Nikola "NiKo" Kovač popping off early on, going big with eight kills for a 4-2 FaZe lead. From then on, however, FalleN once again stabilized SK, leading the Brazilian side to go on a huge run. SK won 10 straight between the end of the first half and the start of the second half. While FaZe managed to win three straight rounds afterwards, SK got on track to finish up the 16-7 win and put itself just one win away from the championship.
Game 3 ended up being an absolute thriller on Inferno. NiKo was on top of his game yet again at the start of this game, giving FaZe an early 6-0 lead. SK managed to find a few more rounds in the half, but FaZe stood tall, taking a 10-5 lead into the half. The second half is where things started to heat up as SK rattled off five straight wins to open the half and tie things up at 10 all. The teams then traded back-and-forth round wins, with SK taking a late 13-12 lead. FaZe didn't let SK runaway, though, with Håvard "rain" Nygaard picking up a 1-vs-2 clutch to tie things at 13. FaZe took the next three wins to keep its hopes alive and force Game 4.
Game 4 started off well enough for FaZe, as it took a 4-2 lead early on. That lead didn't come easy, though, as it took karrigan coming up with a sneaky bomb defusal in true ninja form in Round 6 to cement that lead. From then on, the teams proceeded to trade wins back and forth for the remainder of the half. Round 9 was another high-profile round as NiKo and coldzera traded triple kills, with coldzera's coming in a 1-vs-3 situation for the round win. While FaZe overcame that for a 9-6 lead at the half, SK found its groove with a 10-2 showing in the half to lock up the 16-11 win.
The 3-1 series win was the perfect exclamation point on SK's performance in this tournament, as the Brazilians dropped just one map all tournament. Despite the shaky start to the year, it seems safe to say that SK is officially back and will be a force to be reckoned with for tournaments to come.