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After two days of high-stakes competition, just two teams remain at the Rivalry x Order Insanely Awesome CS:GO Tournament. Only one can emerge victorious and take home the lion’s share of $10,000 and the title at Oceania’s first top event for 2022.
Heading into the tournament, the general consensus was backing in Order — could any of the squads in attendance take down the favourite, fresh off the plane from a European bootcamp?
The answer appeared to be a resounding ‘no’ on day one.
Order dropped just 15 rounds in their three group stage best-of-one’s. Open qualifier Dead Weight came closest to a win, leading the half but faltering on the T side to lose 16-11, before Order put Overt and 8Ballers to the sword in record time, taking both matches 16-2.
Overt — just a week on from their top two finish at Rivalry’s sister event, Clash of Rivals — joined Order in the playoffs from Group A, edging out 8Ballers 16-14 on Inferno.
Group B saw Paradox through 3-0 ahead of Vertex, with their 16-9 win their first in the head-to-head against James “Roflko” Lytras’ line-up in months.
Vertex were at risk of missing the playoffs until the final best-of-one, where their 16-6 victory over 1620 Kings locked them in as second seed.
Day two initially saw more of the same from the top seeds — Paradox annihilated Overt 2-0 (16-4, 16-6), while Order extended their head-to-head map record to 20-4 over Vertex with a 2-0 (16-12, 16-9) win.
The two form teams for the event met in the upper bracket, but what proceeded surprised everyone.
Led by Corey “nettik” Browne (22-13, 104 ADR, 1.64 rating) & Michael “chelleos” Hawkins (20-12, 91 ADR, 1.63 rating), Paradox handed Order their first map loss of the event — a 16-6 Dust 2 demolition.
Order would shake off the rust for game two, narrowly avoiding a Paradox comeback on Mirage to hold off 16-13 behind a Declan “Vexite” Portelli masterclass (28-20, 106 ADR, 1.48 rating).
But there would be no stopping Paradox in the end, claiming an unlikely upset on Nuke 16-14 to book their spot in the big dance and send the ESL Challenger 48 representatives to the lower bracket.
Sharvesh “dangeR” Saravanan (23-21, 1.16 rating) was the stand-out for Paradox in the two-round win, netting numerous multikills on CT ramp and landing a match-turning one-versus-three.
Order would eventually join them, downing Vertex in a rematch 2-0 (16-8, 16-11), but for the first time in a long while, they’ll enter today’s final as underdogs.
Players to watch: Paradox nettik & Order USTILO
By his own admission, nettik felt he had an off day, but enters the grand final as the highest rated player at the event thanks to monstrous kill counts in the group stage wins and in their initial series against Overt.
Even then, he was instrumental in Paradox’s win on Dust 2 against Order, and has shown he’s still got another gear he can shift to.
Since his return to competition following his ESIC ban, nettik has been one of the region’s best — his 1.26 rating since joining Paradox has him third-best in the region behind LFO’s Euan “sterling” Moore and Jared “HaZR” O’Bree.
For Order, the expected player to watch would be Vexite, who was nigh unstoppable even yesterday, but it’s Karlo “USTILO” Pivac who impressed the most in the playoffs.
Where Vexite couldn’t keep up against Paradox, USTILO was there to take the reins, posting nine opening kills and finding incredible impact with his lurks.
The series certainly wouldn’t have been as close had USTILO not been on his game, and Order will need all the firepower they can draw on if they hope to overcome Paradox in the best-of-five marathon.
Paradox versus Order, Grand Final for Rivalry’s Insanely Awesome CS:GO Tournament begins at 4:30pm AEDT, and will play out live on Twitch at ordergaming_gg.
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