Astralis and Team Liquid are the first ones to qualify for the Last 8 and be among the Legends for the next Major, after they defeated Renegades and Navi respectively in a BO3 series.
Astralis began their match on Mirage against a Renegades side that surprised many by beating FaZe, and were looking in cruise control after a scoreline of 13-2 on the CT side. But an inspired performance from jkaem in the 2nd half shocked the Danes as they took the seemingly lost map to Overtime and eventually closed out the match 19-17.
Nuke, where Astralis have had a spotless 29-0 record, beat the Aussies comfortably by a scoreline of 16-9, winning all 10 of their CT rounds, before blowing them away 16-2 on inferno despite losing the first round pistol.
Liquid vs Navi was poised to be the most interesting matchups of the day, with explosive players like s1mple, electronic, Stewie2K and Twistzz all being in 1 server. The first map Mirage was a tight affair, with each team winning a bunch of rounds in a row before conceding the same. In the end, Liquid one the last 4 T side rounds thanks to the heroics of Stewie and closed out the match 16-14.
Dust 2, the map pick of Liquid looked to be a repeat of Mirage with how back and forth the rounds were, with the first half finishing 8-7 in Liquid’s favour. However, the North Americans were ruthless in the T half and dropped just 2 rounds to round off a complete performance to win 16-9.
Round Three
2-0 Matches
Astralis vs. Renegades
- Renegades won Mirage 19-17
- Astralis won Nuke 16-9
- Astralis won Inferno 16-2
Team Liquid vs. Natus Vincere
- Liquid won Mirage 16-14
- Liquid won Dust II 16-9
1-1 Matches
- MIBR won Inferno 16-12 vs. G2 Esports
- AVANGAR won Mirage 16-13 vs. FaZe Clan
- Ninjas in Pyjamas won Overpass 16-5 vs. HellRaisers
- Team Vitality won Mirage 16-14 vs. Cloud9
0-2 Matches
ENCE Esports vs. BIG
- BIG won Dust II 16-5
- ENCE won Train 16-14
- ENCE won Overpass 16-10
CompLexity Gaming vs. NRG Esports
- coL won Nuke 22-19
- coL won Cache 19-16
Stage 3 is COMPLETE!
Here is how the bracket has evolved so far at the #IEM Katowice Major Legends Stage. pic.twitter.com/iI9WHu1KZ3— Intel® Extreme Masters (@IEM) February 21, 2019
The 3-0 means that not only do these 2 teams get an extra couple of days to rest, they have played far lesser maps than the others which means that they still get to keep most of their strats a secret which can be very important in the final leg of the Major.
