Brazil’s Tempo Storm beat Denmark’s SK Gaming 3-1 at the Gfinity CSGO Pro-League Season 9 LAN finals on the weekend.
The CEVO Gfinity Counter-Strike tournament, which took place at London Fulham Broadway over the long weekend, has ended – and what a show it was.
A mix of North American and European teams fought for a first-place finish, with a prize pool of $125 000.
The group stages took place on Thursday and Friday, the semi-finals were held on Saturday and the grand finals took place on Sunday at 3 30pm. There was plenty of gunfire and explosions and action in-game, with more than 46,000 viewers tuning in to watch on Twitch.
In the grand finals, Brazilian team Tempo Storm took on European team SK Gaming, in an explosive best-of-five contest.
Tempo Storm are a relatively new and unknown team to professional Counter-Strike Gaming. This is largely due to the fact that they have only been an active team for four months with Luis “peacemaker” Tadeu as their coach. Thus, it is appropriate to say that they are the current story to tell for being the present and latest underdog team in professional Counter Strike.
As the winners of the Gfinity tournament, it is their first international trophy. At the end of the day, Brazil has now earned the right to claim it has established one of the most promising Counter-Strike teams in the world, with a relatively new squad in a very short period of time.
They’ve done it! Winning the series over @SKGaming 3-1 #TSCSGO are the Champions of the @cevo @Gfinity Pro League #S9Finals!
— Tempo Storm (@Tempo_Storm) 1 May 2016
Check out our full match report below to see how the action unfolded during the grand final.
Grand final rosters
- Tempo Storm – booitz, LUCAS1, felps, HEN1, SHOOWTIME
- SK Gaming – Acilion, MagiskbOy, Friis, moffeliten, Pimp
Game 1 took place on the Cache map; Tempo Storm started off strong with a 14-1 lead before the half time break.
SK Gaming attempted a come back, leading to a 15-5 score. This was due to smart and conservative plays by Pimp, catching Tempo Storm by surprise with the use of maps corners and barrels for cover and concealment.
Despite this, Tempo Storm finished Game 1 with a strong performance by Felps. Later on, Pimp from SK Gaming started to abuse the underrated TEC 9, which again caught Tempo Storm off guard, securing a double kill.
But overall Tempo Storm were the stronger side, whose solid performance rapidly vanquished SK Gaming’s hopes of establishing a comeback. Storm took the first game.
Game 2 took place on Dust2. Hen1 claimed first blood for Tempo storm and secured the first round. Hen1 utilized his impressive sniper skills to claim the victory in round 2.
However, there were two disastrous accidental team kills from Pimp during a smoke grenade, which signified inconsistency in communication within the team regarding movement and gunfire.
The game continued with both teams at 4-4 thirsty for each other’s blood, but with SK Gaming looking more competitive. After the pause break, Tempo Storm gained a substantial lead, where their sniping superiority performance over SK Gaming started to show, as SK Gaming struggle to find a counter strategy to deal with it.
However, Pimp secured a double kill after a series of missed shots by Tempo Storm, bringing the score towards 14-12. A well timed executed ambush by Tempo Storm with a grenade, Molotov and smoke grenade on section B consistently caught SK Gaming off-guard. As a result, they were quickly wiped out as angry bullets were exchanged in a very short instance.
Things then really heated up as both teams went into overtime, with 10,000 game currency being provided to both teams to spend on weaponry and other equipment. During overtime, both teams were on 6-6, but Tempo Storm took Game 2 in the end.
Game 3 then proceeded, which took place on map Mirage. SK claimed first blood, however Felps from Tempo Storm did claim a double kill.
Despite this, SK Gaming – with great resilience and a noticeable improvement in performance by Emil MagiskbOy, who claimed four kills with a T-Sided pistol – won the first four rounds, just as Tempo Storm tried to turn things around with a bomb defusal attempt.
Regardless of the brave but desperate effort, Boltz was taken down in the last second. Friis’ performance from SK Gaming also saw an improvement, with clever and unpredictable weaponry choices that threw Tempo Storm off balance. Tempo Storm were ultimately unable to stop SK Gaming from claiming Game 3, with MODDII getting consistent kills. 2-1.
Game 4 took place on the Cobblestone map – and it was the deciding game. Tempo Storm took a swift first-round victory and looked on form as they claimed the first 5 rounds seemingly with ease.
As SK Gaming did in Game 2, Tempo Storm also utilised the TEC 9 surprise strategy and they dominated SK Gaming with significantly superior map control and coordination, thus establishing a significant 8-0 lead.
SK Gaming then took a round with Pimp executing an unexpected and impressive triple kill. Despite this, Tempo Storm extended their lead to 11-2 and half time came at a score of 12-3 to Tempo Storm.
After half time, SK Gaming refused to give up and took three rounds which lead to a 12-6 score. However there was more impressive sniping performance from Hen1 as he proceeded to take out Pimp, MODDII and Friis single-handedly.
But once again, Pimp made another surprise play with skillful use of an AK 47 with incredible spray control, outplaying Tempo Storm with great marksmanship during a smoke. SHOOWTIME from Tempo Storm displayed incredible accuracy on the high powered but high recoil AK 47. Felps then secured a double flank kill. Pimp then unleashed a triple kill but Tempo Storm could not be stopped.
In the end the Brazilian team proved too much as they took Game 4 with score of 16-8, ending the grand finals 3-1 to Tempo Storm.
THIS IS BRAZIL!
CHAMPIONNNNNNSSSSSSS.
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— Lucas Teles (@TempoLucas1) 1 May 2016
Overall, what was the event like? It was conducted with great professionalism by the staff. Despite there being some technical issues on the Twitch stream during the semi-finals (which were quickly resolved), the event proceeded smoothly with a very friendly atmosphere with an enthusiastic audience.
The games were entertaining and tense to watch – and there was plenty of food and drink to access both in the cinema, and the various restaurants and cafes at the station. The venue was comfortable and easy to navigate and there was a small store that sold some PC hardware and some Gfinity branded attire. We left the event impressed.
Final standings and winnings
1. Tempo Storm – $55,000
2. SK – $30,000
3/4. Virtus.pro – $12,500
3/4. HellRaisers – $12,500
5/6. Team Dignitas – $5,000
5/6. OpTic – $5,000
7/8. Splyce – $2,500
7/8. Selfless – $2,500
