Review of iBUYPOWER Masters IV

iBUPOWER Masters IV is over. Now let's summarize it and see who managed to surpass expectations and who made their fans disappointed.

Impressions from the tournament

Speaking about holding iBUYPOWER Masters IV, the first thing that comes to our mind is the technical problems that led to long delays and even absence of streams. For example, the match between FaZe Clan and Ghost hasn't been broadcast during the live stream and the rebroadcast was posted six hours after the end of the meeting. As the meetings of the participating teams were accompanied with delays and technical problems, the impression from the tournament was spoiled.

But the situation could be saved by the main heroes of the day, participants of the championship. They gave us unforgettable feelings and a new portion of interesting highlights made by different esportsmen and the final leading an unbelievable series of wins for Astralis to the end is reflected in the memory of each spectator following the professional CS:GO stage.

Teams that didn't satisfy the expectations

FaZe Clan

Recently there have been some changes in the roster of the European team. The Kazakh esportsman Dauren "AdreN" Kystaubayev joined the collective for a period of holding iBUYPOWER Masters IV and ELEAGUE CS:GO Invitational 2019 joined the team. He became a part of the team as a substitute player, but he could get a permanent contract having a successful performance. Taking into account the talented players representing FaZe Clan, the audience expected to see a more expected result even considering the fact that the team hasn’t had enough time to achieve good teamwork. It is too early to reach final conclusions. There is one more tournament, ELEAGUE CS:GO Invitational 2019, ahead. Nevertheless, Dauren wasn’t able to unlock his potential in a full way, having taken the finals place in his team at two out of three held matches as a part of FaZe Clan. In the end, FaZe Clan took the third place in Group B, winning only over the weakest opponent in their group - Luminosity Gaming. In the tournament bracket FaZe took the 5-6 place and got a money prize consisting of $8,000.

Teams that satisfied the expectations

Fnatic

The Swedish team took the second place in Group A as it had been expected, as Astralis were impossible to defeat while Cloud9 and compLexity Gaming were weaker opponents.n They lost the match with Cloud9 but won the battles with compLexity Gaming and Cloud9. At the playoff they had a worthy fight with Team Liquid and lost the battle by the score of 1-2, finishing participating at the 3-4 place. Their efforts resulted in $17,000 as a money reward.

Cloud9

Cloud9 took the 3 place in the group winning over Fnatic, but losing against Astralis and Fnatic. Inasmuch as the fact that the Swedish managed to win a rematch with C9, the Americans were forced to finish participating in the tournament at the group stage. Their 5-6 place in the tournament bracket resulted in a money prize of $8,000 for Cloud9. It’s worth noting that the fact that C9 were about to get to the final stage is quite interesting. They lost the game against Fnatic by the score of 14-16. If they had won one more round, they would have been able to fight at the overtime, however, in the end C9 took the 5-6 place. Can you make a conclusion that Zellsis is not good for the team or that the roster need more cardinal changes? So, possibly it is early to make any decision about this and the collective needs more time to achieve good teamwork. The next tournament that is ELEAGUE CS:GO Invitational 2019 will clarify the situation and will give answers to some questions.

compLexity Gaming

Nobody expected that compLexity Gaming would pass the group stage, so coL performed as the spectators imagined. The team is a representative of the 2-3 echelon in North America that had strong opponents. Rickeh, who joined the collective 3 weeks ago couldn’t change the situation at the matches with Astralis and Fnatic. But, if coL had won only 3 rounds at the battle with the Danish, then, playing with Fnatic, they would have shown us a worthy game winning 14 rounds. Nevertheless, the team lost the match with the Swedish and took the 4 place in Group A and the 7-8 place in the tournament bracket, respectively. The participation in this tournament resulted in $5,000 as a consolation prize for coL.

Luminosity Gaming

Luminosity Gaming went on the same way as compLexity Gaming. They also got to their group being a clear outsider and performed in the way it had been expected by audience. Being not able to defeat such opponents as Team Liquid and FaZe Clan, the team took the 4 place in Group B and therefore the 7-8 place in the tournament bracket. Getting a consolation prize of $5,000, the Brazilian became the first to leave the competition. Ricardo ‘boltz’ Prass, joining LG on 12 December couldn’t strengthen the team up to the level to get at least the third place in their group. Maybe later the collective will get a game shape but now they have a lot of things to work on.

Astralis

It’s impossible to say for sure if the audience is surprised that Astralis didn’t continue their series of wins, but the fact that the Danish passed to the final wasn’t surprising for anyone. That is the reason why in our review gla1ve and his team got to the category “Teams that satisfied the expectations”. If we take Intel Grand Slam into account, Astralis had a series of 5 wins. It was stopped at this very championship. Four times when Astralis got to the final against Team Liquid, the decisive battle ended in a win for the Danish, but that time they lost by the score of 1-2. They won the first map by the score of 16-4 and possibly this was the reason why Astralis lied on mental oars, that had a negative effect on the further game of the Titans of the professional CS:GO. In the end, Astralis took the second place giving a good opposition to their opponents, and got a money prize of $40,000.

Teams that surpassed the expectations

Ghost Gaming

Speaking of the teams that managed to surpass the expectations of spectators, we do have to talk about Ghost Gaming. According to bookmakers and the majority of viewers, this collective reached the tournament as one of the obvious outsiders. Nevertheless, Ghost Gaming managed to show a beautiful performance and took the second place in Group B by the statistics of 2-1 and made it to the playoff. The won over FaZe Clan twice by the score of 16-14 and 16-13, but lost the battle with Team Liquid. Getting to the final stage, Ghost were forced to play against Astralis, where they had no chance to win. On the first map Ghost won only 2 rounds, while they took also 14 rounds on the second one, which is really good for such a team. In the end, Ghost Gaming took the 3-4 place in the tournament bracket and got a money reward of $17,000.

Interesting fact: before the start of the tournament, on 18 January, Ghost Gaming had changes in their rosters. Yassine ‘Subroza’ Taoufik left the team and his place was taken by Ryan ‘freakazoid’ Abadir. It wasn’t an obstacle for the Americans to win over one of the strongest collectives in the world twice and to get to the playoff.

Team Liquid

Team Liquid approached the tournament being one of the main favorites for sure. As it had been expected, they took the first place in Group B winning over such opponents as Luminosity Gaming and Ghost Gaming. Making it to the playoff, they faced with Fnatic and kicked the Swedish out of the competition by the score of 2-1. It’s worth mentioning that Liquid could have ended the meeting up on the second map but there Fnatic showed persistence and stumbled the Americans at the first half winning the second one having a good handicap there. After Liquid getting to the final, the majority of spectators started to ponder whether Liquid could win over their unfavourable opponents Astralis at the final battle on the fifth try. As a reminder, Liquid made it to the final against Astralis at several major tournament and all the four times resulted in the second place at the championship for them. After the easy win 16-4 on the first map for Astralis, many people were sure that the Danish would triumph eventually. Nevertheless, nitr0 and his team had pulled themselves together and showed what they were capable of, but who knows maybe it was a tricky way to weaken Astralis’ watch? NAF got the status of the most valuable player at the tournament and one more time proved that he was one of the best esportsmen in the shooter discipline and that, he took position #6 in the rating of the best players in 2018 for a reason.

This tournament is over. There are a lot of events ahead. Follow other eSports events  and matches together with us and also don't miss our tips for the upcoming matches.