The Russian-Ukrainian side Vega Squadron advanced to the grand final of StarSeries i-League Season 6, beating NRG 2-1 (Mirage 14-16, Overpass 16-7, Inferno 16-12).

The second semi-final started on Mirage, which was picked by Vega Squadron. The CIS team started off perfectly, 3-0, and followed that up by closing out a scary anti-eco and shutting down an A site execute to extend their lead on the CT side.

The score was 6-0 when NRG finally managed to get on the board with a slow A-split, holding off Vega Squadron's retake, but they weren't able to follow up on it, with Pavel "hutji" Lashkov's B-site defense ace making the score 8-1 in favor of Vega Squadron. The North American side managed to pull it together towards the end of the half, with Tsvetelin "CeRq" Dimitrov and Ethan "nahtE" Arnold having multikill rounds, but they could only manage four before switching to the CT side.

Damian "daps" Steele and co. picked off their opponents one-by-one in the second half pistol to give themselves a lifeline on Mirage, but Dmitriy "jR" Chervak and co. replied quickly, with their push towards A finding almost no resistance (12-6).

NRG still managed to bounce back by winning the ensuing round and took control of the economy to recover on the CT side. Soon enough, the North Americans took the lead, 13-12, not allowing Vega Squadron to make progress towards the bombsites. That is when jR showed up with a 1v3 clutch on B, but both that and winning a force buy weren't enough for his team to close out the map, and NRG completed the comeback to win Mirage 16-14.


jR will be playing the grand final in his home country tomorrow
To kick-off the second map, Overpass, NRG overran the A site defence and set themselves up for a great, 5-0 Terrorist side start. Vega Squadron got on a board then as jR and Leonid "chopper" Vishnyakov picked up doubles and shut down the B site approach. The CIS side picked up pace after that and looked comfortable as they brought the score to a tie, 5-5. Vega Squadron looked good to get into the lead as they secured two entries in the following round, but daps' 1v3 clutch on B denied them.

Vega Squadron still ended the half with a minimal lead, 8-7, and added a 3-0 start on the Terrorist side to put pressure on NRG (11-7). jR opened up things in the first rifle round with the AWP and set the pace in the second half. The Russian-Ukrainian side continued pummeling the B site round after round, securing seven round in a row to reach map point. hutji then single-handedly closed out the map, picking up four kills towards A to make the score 16-7 and force the decider, Inferno.


NRG couldn't seal the deal on their map pick, Overpass
The initial rounds on the third map were heavily contested by both sides with force buys, with Vega Squadron ending on top in the end thanks to Igor "crush" Shevchenko's hat-trick with the Deagle in round four. The score was 4-2 when Vincent "Brehze" Cayonte and CeRq traded out kills on A and held down the 2v2 after plant, and NRG built on that on the T side. However, Vega Squadron contested them for every inch and managed to move to a minimal deficit, 8-7, before switching to the T-side.

Vega Squadron broke onto the A site through Apartments and held the afterplant to get back into the lead quickly in the second half (10-8). With rifles in their hands, NRG locked down A without losing a player and followed up on that to break the CIS side's economy. Following three rounds going the way of the North Americans, jR's team won a couple of clean rounds to put NRG on the breaking point, both economically and round-wise (13-11).

daps's squad tried to counter Vega Squadron with some aggressive plays in Mid and Alt-Mid, but it fell flat and NRG had to save in the next one to try and fight for overtime. With the double AWP, they managed to add another round, but a fast-paced A push worked out in the followup and Vega Squadron closed it out 16-12, 2-1 for the series.

StarSeries i-League Season 6
Best of 3
Vega Squadron
Vega Squadron
Russia
Matchpage
2 1
13th October 2018
United States
NRG
NRG
14
Mirage
16
16
Overpass
7
16
Inferno
12
Vega Squadron Vega Squadron K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0
Russia Anton 'tonyblack' Kolesnikov 63 - 46 +17 81.7 1.24
Russia Pavel 'hutji' Lashkov 55 - 54 +1 74.8 1.10
Russia Leonid 'chopper' Vishnyakov 59 - 48 +11 68.5 1.06
Ukraine Dmitriy 'jR' Chervak 49 - 49 0 69.8 1.05
Ukraine Igor 'crush' Shevchenko 42 - 51 -9 62.8 0.91
NRG NRG K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0
United States Ethan 'nahtE' Arnold 67 - 55 +12 87.1 1.23
Canada Damian 'daps' Steele 45 - 50 -5 66.4 1.03
United States Vincent 'Brehze' Cayonte 46 - 53 -7 61.3 0.91
United States Jacob 'FugLy' Medina 47 - 54 -7 64.1 0.89
Bulgaria Tsvetelin 'CeRq' Dimitrov 42 - 57 -15 61.5 0.84