Winstrike proceed to semi-finals ESL One Road to Rio 2020: CIS

Winstrike team faced off against Syman Gaming today for a place in the semi-finals to be played against Hard Legion Esports.

Syman Gaming qualified on the back of Na’Vi’s failure to qualify for the playoffs and were looking to hit the full jackpot by going as far as they can during the playoffs.

Wintstrike though were the favorites considering the greater firepower and experience they have in the team.

Syman picked Mirage, Winstrike went with their most comfortable map Nuke and Train was picked as the decider. The analysts predicted that Syman needed to take Mirage to have any chance of taking the series to a third map, viewing Nuke as lock in for Winstrike.

Mirage did start pretty well for Syman who began on the offensive side and played an all out game of counter strike. They managed to keep the CT economy in check and won the half 9:6. They won the second pistol and converted the next two rounds to take the score to 12:6.

With chances starting to deplete Winstrike had to convert the following round. They did and then went on a 8 round winning streak to take the score 14:12. Syman answered back with two rounds of their own but Winstrike had plenty of money in the bank to take map point first. With no economy to suport, Syman forced up in the final round with no result and lost 16:14.

“El1an” lead with 25 kills on the Winstrike team but each player had their moments during the game. “neaLan” was the top performer for Syman with 23 kills for Syman.

Winstrike started Nuke on T side and things did go as planned for them. They won the pistol to start a string of rounds to put Syman firmly on the back foot. They lead 8-1 after which Syman strung 4 rounds before falling off again to end the half with a 5-10 deficit.

Syman did win the pistol and the conversion but once rifles were into play Winstrike struck back. Winstrike reached map and series point with score being at 15:9. Syman did show some fight wining the next 4 rounds to make the score line interesting but Winstrike managed to close out the game 16:13. “Lack1′ top fragged for Winstrike with 24 kills to his name, “Keoz” was the best performer in the map and overall too with 52 kills to his name across both maps.

With the win, Winstrike progress to the semi finals, as for Syman it was a nice qualifying campaign and they would be looking to do one step better in the next qualifying campaign.

Note:- The Rio major was scheduled to take place in May 2020 but due to the ongoing pandemic the major was shifted to November 2020. The prize pool of first Major will be added to the November Major. ESL on its part have decided to host three qualification rounds in order for teams to remain at their peak. Each qualifying stage will have Regional Major Points(RMR) which will be added to determine the qualification order. Each qualifying stage will have a prize pool of $255,000 divided across the six regions. To read more about this, click here.

To read more about the ESL One: Road to Rio qualifying campaign, click here