A backlit keyboard is part of the gear online video game streamer Jordan Woodruff uses in his Gilbert home.
Jordan Woodruff
Astralis, SAW and MOUZ claimed the final three playoff spots Tuesday at the $1.25 million PGL Cluj-Napoca event in Romania.
Astralis swept BIG, SAW did the same to 3DMAX and MOUZ eliminated Virtus.pro 2-1 in their respective Round 5 matches to finalize the eight-team, single-elimination playoff bracket.
Sixteen teams started the Counter-Strike 2 competition on Feb. 14. All the playoff matches are best-of-three until Sunday’s best-of-five grand final, where the winning team will take home $400,000.
Astralis got Tuesday’s do-or-die slate started by defeating BIG 13-7 on Ancient and 13-8 on Inferno. Martin “stavn” Lund of Denmark paced Astralis with 36 kills and a plus-14 kills-to-deaths differential.
SAW had a tougher time with 3DMAX, prevailing 13-10 on Nuke and 16-14 on Dust II. Jose “shr” Gil of Portugal had a team-high 44 kills with a plus-5 K-D differential for SAW.
MOUZ sandwiched a 13-8 win on Ancient and a 13-2 win on Mirage around a 16-13 loss to Virtus.Pro on Inferno. Dorian “xertioN” Berman of Israel led the MOUZ effort with 50 kills and a plus-13 K-D ratio.
The playoffs begin Friday with four quarterfinal matches:
FaZe Clan vs. SAW
Eternal Fire vs. Team Falcons
paiN Gaming vs. MOUZ
Astralis vs. The MongolZ
PGL Cluj-Napoca prize pool:
1. $400,000
2. $187,500
3. $150,000
4. $87,500
5-8. $62,500
9-11. $31,250 — 3DMAX, BIG, Virtus.pro
12-14. $18,750 — Wildcard, MIBR, Complexity
15-16. $12,500 — Imperial Female, FlyQuest
–Field Level Media
