Natus Vincere and FURIA Esports each scored a pair of victories to advance to the Group A upper-bracket final on the first day of the Intel Extreme Masters Rio 2024 event on Monday in Rio de Janeiro.
After notching easy wins in their opening matches, Natus Vincere rallied past Team Liquid 2-1 in one upper-bracket semifinal, while FURIA outlasted MOUZ 2-1 on the other side of the bracket.
The $250,000 IEM Rio began with two double-elimination groups of eight teams. The best-of-one opening matches in both groups were played Monday. All following matches are best-of-three.
The winners of Groups A and B will advance directly to the playoff semifinals. The group runners-up will move to the quarterfinals as the high seeds, and the third-place teams will advance to the quarterfinals as the low seeds. The playoffs are a single-elimination bracket where all matches are best-of-three until the best-of-five grand final Sunday.
The winning team will take home $100,000 and earn an automatic berth into IEM Katowice 2025.
On Monday, Natus Vincere routed Imperial Esports 13-2 on Nuke and Team Liquid defeated Complexity Gaming 13-6 on Inferno to move to the Group A semifinals. Liquid clubbed NaVi 13-4 on Inferno to open their match, but NaVi responded with a 13-5 win on Dust II and then eked out a 13-11 victory on Ancient.
Mihai “iM” Ivan of Romania tallied a match-high 54 kills on a plus-11 kills-to-deaths differential for NaVi against Liquid.
FURIA began the tournament with a 13-7 win on Dust II over FaZe Clan, while MOUZ edged paiN Gaming 13-11, also on Dust II. FURIA then sandwiched a 13-8 win on Nuke and a 13-5 result on Dust II around a 13-5 loss on Mirage to defeat MOUZ.
Brazil’s Kaike “KSCERATO” Cerato posted 50 kills on a plus-19 differential to guide FURIA over MOUZ.
In the Group A lower-bracket quarterfinals, Complexity defeated Imperial 2-1 and FaZe Clan beat paiN Gaming by the same score. Imperial and paiN were eliminated from the competition.
Group B began with just the four upper-bracket quarterfinal matches and will resume play Tuesday. Team Vitality destroyed 9z Team 13-3 on Mirage, The MongolZ beat Virtus.pro 13-10 on Mirage, Astralis edged Eternal Fire 13-11 on Inferno and HEROIC topped G2 Esports 13-10 on Dust II.
The tournament continues Tuesday with six matches:
–MOUZ vs. Complexity Gaming (Group A lower-bracket semifinal)
–Team Liquid vs. FaZe Clan (Group A lower-bracket semifinal)
–Team Vitality vs. The MongolZ (Group B upper-bracket semifinal)
–Astralis vs. HEROIC (Group B upper-bracket semifinal)
–9z Team vs. Virtus.pro (Group B lower-bracket quarterfinal)
–Eternal Fire vs. G2 Esports (Group B lower-bracket quarterfinal)
IEM Rio 2024 prize pool:
1. $100,000, qualification to IEM Katowice 2025
2. $42,000
3-4. $20,000
5-6. $10,000
7-8. $6,000
9-12. $5,000
13-16. $4,000 — Imperial Esports, paiN Gaming, two teams TBD
–Field Level Media
