IHC Put Mongolia on the CS:GO Map at IEM Katowice
IHC Esports did not manage to qualify for the playoffs of IEM Katowice, but they certainly made an epic statement before exiting the competition.
This Mongolian team that nobody knows anything about qualified for the tournament thanks to its World Ranking AS, which essentially means that it was regarded as one of the best Asian teams in CS:GO. The ESL rank of IHC is somewhere between 40th and 50th. Compared to most of the teams at IEM Katowice, that’s really low.
https://twitter.com/IEM/status/1622704186835058688
IHC’s Run at IEM Katowice
IHC entered the tournament with zero hopes of surviving the play-in stage. And, indeed, they started the tournament with a humiliating defeat against Cloud9: 16-5. The situation looked dire and there was no reason to suspect that a team like this could ever win a best-of-three against anyone at this tournament.
But, in the lower bracket of the play-in stage, IHC encountered two respectable Brazilian teams: paiN Gaming and FURIA Esports. The victory against paiN raised some eyebrows but was mostly regarded as a fluke. And even if it wasn’t a fluke, paiN were not exactly the strongest team in Brazil, so their defeat didn’t mean much.
But the next match, against FURIA, shocked everyone. This was the team that all of Brazil cheered for at IEM Rio Major. FURIA defeated Natus Vincere at that tournament and finished 3rd – 4th. So for them to lose against a complete no-name was a shock.
The match was very difficult for both sides but IHC ended up winning it: 14-16 (Nuke), 19-16 (Mirage), 10-16 (Anubis). As usual, Kaike “KSCERATO” Cerato did a phenomenal job but his teammates simply couldn’t help him enough. For the Mongolians, Tengis “sk0R” Batjargal was the best player but most of the team played well.
https://twitter.com/FURIA/status/1622359880882429956
Group Stage
Thanks to their victory against FURIA, IHC qualified for the group stage, where they encountered Team Liquid and lost: 16-13 on Inferno and 16-6 on Overpass. This defeat sent IHC to the lower bracket, where they had to face Cloud9 again.
Based on what had happened in the play-in stage, everyone assumed that the match would end quickly. But it didn’t. IHC won in a very dramatic fashion: 16-14 on Inferno and 16-14 on Mirage. Both times, the team was behind after the first half and had to make a comeback.
In their next match, IHC encountered FaZe Clan and were finally taught a CS:GO lesson. But their achievements at IEM Katowice 2023 will definitely be remembered for the entire year.
Header: IHC Esports