With Day 1 of the IEM Dallas done and dusted here is a general overview of what happened.
The First LAN event in North America after the pandemic has just started. When it was first announced, the hype for the IEM Dallas 2022 was through the roof for the fans. However, since the announcement, the excitement slowly decreased with multiple teams and players not being able to attend.
Entropiq, Heroic and most importantly NAVI are not at Dallas to compete, and multiple teams are also fielding stand-ins. Erik ‘ztr’ Gustafsson for NIP, Breno ‘brnz4n’ Poletto for MiBR and Lotan ‘Spinx’ Giladi for ENCE aren’t playing in IEM. As expected these many unexpected changes seem to sour fans away from the tournament online. Still, the tickets for the actual event are almost sold out.
The first day of groups started today without a live audience. The first day consisted of all eight Bo1s of the tournament and our first elimination games. Unfortunately, Movistar Riders and Encore said an early goodbye to IEM Dallas.
Group A
Group A didn’t have many surprises on its first day. FaZe and G2 both had relatively easier matchups and neither sweated too much during their Bo1s. The other favorite to top the group ENCE had a comfortable victory against MOUZ on Nuke after a decisive T side. In the last game of this stage, Vitality managed to win 16-12 against Astralis on Vertigo, thanks to a 32-kill performance from Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut.
- G2 Esports 16 – 5 Movistar Riders
- MOUZ 9 – 16 ENCE
- FaZe Clan 16 – 5 Encore
- Astralis 12 – 16 Team Vitality
Upper Bracket Round 2
The first two teams that clinched playoffs are to no one’s surprise will be FaZe and ENCE. ENCE had a very close Bo3 against G2 where they managed a very narrow victory with both games going to 30 rounds.
On the other side, FaZe went up against Vitality who were looking for an early upset against the Major winners. However, after a close map 1 in Dust2, they couldn’t keep up with FaZe in Nuke. FaZe and ENCE will face each other on June 1, to decide which team gets a by round in the Playoffs.
- FaZe 2 – 0 Team Vitality
- G2 Esports 0 – 2 ENCE
Lower Bracket Round 1
Unfortunately for Encore and Movistar Riders, they are the two teams that got eliminated today. Aussies had a particularly tough draw today, facing Astralis just after losing to FaZe, and they weren’t able to impress in either of these matchups.
Movistar which replaced Entropiq in this group also had a disappointing showing. While MOUZ isn’t a weak team by any means, it was the best opportunity for the Spaniards to move to the next stage. However, they couldn’t take a game, thanks to a great performance by Aurimas ‘Bymas’ Pipiras.
- Encore 0 – 2 Astralis
- Movistar Riders 0 – 2 MOUZ
Group B
Group B started with a Brazilian derby in which FURIA was able to overcome the veteran Imperial. On the other side, Team Liquid couldn’t stand against a Cloud9 looking to bounce back after a disappointing Major. And while the Complexity lost its first game on home soil to a MiBR with a stand-in, BIG managed to get the first upset of the event with a win over NIP.
- FURIA Esports 16 – 9 Imperial Esports
- Team Liquid 16 – 6 Cloud9
- Ninjas in Pyjamas 10 – 16 BIG
- MIBR 16 – 4 Complexity
May 31 Schedule
IEM Dallas will continue tomorrow with Bo5s. May 31 mostly will be lower bracket games and four more teams will be eliminated from the event. Here is the full schedule:
Group B Lower Bracket Round 1
- Imperial Esports – Team Liquid May 31, 8:00 AM PST
- Ninjas in Pyjamas – Complexity May 31, 8:00 AM PST
Group A Lower Bracket Round 2
- G2 Esports – Astralis May 31, 11:30 AM PST
- Team Vitality – MOUZ May 31, 3:00 PM PST
Group B Upper Bracket Round 2
- FURIA – Cloud9 May 31, 11:30 AM PST
- BIG – MiBR May 31, 3:00 PM PST