Maden’s 40 bomb – and much more / Day 1 of IEM Summer

Games Writer

Last Updated on 10/06/2024

It didn’t take long for us to crown the greatest Ancient player of all time.

Maden of FPX managed to drop 42 frags in regulation as FPX took Ancient over G2, in what is the world’s first pro hard carry on the map. G2 were on fire on Dust 2, though. Literally.

.@G2NiKo attempts… a.. maneuver #IEM pic.twitter.com/KPCyxvNO0J

— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) June 3, 2021

G2 took map three, Inferno, to complete the reverse sweep.

G2 were in the upper bracket because they smashed Extra Salt 16-1 in their opening game – but it’s okay, the NA outfit had another chance to redeem themselves.

#ToTheAirport

Astralis avoided going home early, but did send Extra Salt back to NA with their tails’ between their legs. A clean 2-0 victory eliminated the NA hope and set up a showdown with… Gambit?

Yeah, Gambit. Despite winning their opening game against Sprout, they were removed from the upper bracket by Vitality, with misutaaa continuing his resurgence as a star.

Zy…who?

Complexity might have lost against Vitality to start off the tournament, but immediately smacked Sprout to stay alive. OG slipped past NiP in their BO1, while FNATIC can’t stop losing – though losing to VP is understandable.

Perhaps the biggest shock of the day was Evil Geniuses beating Team Spirit – Spirit losing does happen from time to time, they can be pretty inconsistent; but EG winning doesn’t really.

Heroic taking down Imperial, however, was not a surprise.

Though we’re not back to LAN and everything is fine and dandy, at least spirits are high at IEM Summer. It’s a summer vibe, for sure.

CS scene can be a real stinker sometimes, but I wouldn’t give it up for anything when we get people and events like this pic.twitter.com/olj0XGUBnX

— Adam (@piethrouer) June 3, 2021