FaZe are through to the grand final of ESL One New York following a quick 2-0 victory over Cloud9.
The series kicked off on Cloud9's map pick, Mirage, but anyone watching the match would have said otherwise. Starting out as Counter-Terrorists, FaZe won six of the first seven rounds as Cloud9 struggled to expose the Europeans' defense.
Jake "Stewie2K" Yip then denied FaZe the defuse in a 1v2 situation, giving Cloud9 a much-needed round. That individual action gave the North American team some breathing room, and they controlled proceedings for a while, reducing the deficit to just two rounds - before FaZe turned on the style once again, winning five rounds in a row to take a significant 11-4 lead.
FaZe further added to their lead by taking a very messy pistol round that at one point seemed to be in the bag for Cloud9. With the North Americans looking distraught and well off the pace, the European team would quickly wrap things up, winning five straight rounds to seal a comprehensive 16-4 victory.
The Europeans carried their momentum into Overpass and stormed through the B site in the pistol round thanks to two quick entry frags from Håvard "rain" Nygaard. Winning the first gun round meant very little to Cloud9 as they would lose the next round following a triple kill from Nikola "NiKo" Kovač.
Down 5-1, Cloud9 called a tactical pause in an effort to halt FaZe's momentum. But whatever they did, they just could not keep up with the Terrorists' pace. Cloud9's rounds came down to moments of brilliance from Stewie2K, and those only happened every now and then, with the half ending in a one-sided 12-3 scoreline.
More misery was to come for Cloud9, who got shut down in the pistol round. Desperate force buys from the North Americans then followed, but they certainly did not bother FaZe, who would take the map without losing a round in the half.