MOUZ have won the Group B seeding match at BLAST Open Porto, beating Falcons 2-1 to enter the playoffs at the semi-final stage. Falcons start a round earlier, in the quarter-finals.
Neither team was playing for survival: both had already secured a playoff place, and the seeding match decided only where in the bracket they entered it. The playoffs move out of BLAST's studios in Copenhagen and into Porto's Super Bock Arena on September 4.
The series began badly for MOUZ. Nuke was their own map pick and had returned seven straight wins before this series, but Falcons turned up on it and ended the streak, with HLTV describing a dominant defensive performance in which the entire Falcons lineup fired.
Ancient and Inferno turn the series
Falcons' own Ancient pick then came back to bite them. The map has been a running problem at this tournament — they had already lost it to Lynn Vision and to Legacy — and the pattern repeated. MOUZ challenged Falcons' Mid takes and came out on top time after time, while nobody on the other side created space in return, which made for a swift map win for Dorian "xertioN" Berman's team.
The deciding Inferno followed much the same shape. Starting on the CT side again, MOUZ punished a struggling Nikola "NiKo" Kovač in Banana with well-placed utility and timely Car retakes, while Ádám "torzsi" Torzsás shut down repeated attempts to gain space in Mid and Brackets.
Falcons never recovered the initiative after the switch. Oldřich "PR" Nový closed the door on a last-ditch push down Middle in the second-half pistol round, and MOUZ ran out 13-3 winners to take the series and the semi-final berth.