First day of iBUYPOWER Masters 2019 (eventually) ends; compLexity sent packing
Before a single round of CS:GO was played in Los Angeles yesterday, Astralis' Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander kicked off the day with an ominous Tweet:
The Dane turned out to be correct, the match between Astralis and compLexity was delayed several hours, due in no small part to the event taking place in a nightclub.
Also complicating matters was the revelation from Jarek "DeKay" Lewis that security at the venue was rather lax...
... and then everyone was kicked from the venue to be properly screened:
When matches did eventually start occurring, Astralis stomped compLexity's new formulation 16-3.
Next up in Group A, Cloud9 managed to shock Fnatic, with old-guard members Timothy "autimatic" Ta and Will "RUSH" Wierzba putting up great numbers against the Swedes.
fnaticCloud9| fnatic |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Freddy 'KRIMZ' Johansson |
20 - 18 | +2 | 92.0 | 73.9% | 1.20 |
| Jesper 'JW' Wecksell |
15 - 15 | +0 | 77.6 | 69.6% | 1.12 |
| Ludvig 'Brollan' Brolin |
11 - 19 | -8 | 61.3 | 56.5% | 0.75 |
| Simon 'twist' Eliasson |
13 - 20 | -7 | 58.8 | 60.9% | 0.72 |
| Richard 'Xizt' Landström |
9 - 20 | -11 | 55.9 | 52.2% | 0.58 |
| Cloud9 |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 William 'RUSH' Wierzba |
20 - 14 | +6 | 86.9 | 87.0% | 1.42 |
 Fabien 'kioShiMa' Fiey |
21 - 13 | +8 | 95.0 | 82.6% | 1.38 |
| Timothy 'autimatic' Ta |
18 - 12 | +6 | 89.7 | 78.3% | 1.35 |
| Robin 'flusha' Rönnquist |
19 - 14 | +5 | 91.7 | 73.9% | 1.28 |
| Jordan 'Zellsis' Montemurro |
14 - 15 | -1 | 68.0 | 73.9% | 0.96 |
This set up an elimination match between Fnatic and compLexity, which saw the latter's new addition Ricardo "Rickeh" Mulholland struggle mightily in a losing effort. In the winners' match between Astralis and Cloud9, the Danes expectedly reigned supreme.
Over in Group B, Jonathan "EliGE" Jablownowksi's 30-bomb helped Liquid move past Luminosity. In the other opening match, a similar performance from FaZe's Nikola "NiKo" Kovač was not enough to stop his team being upset by Ryan "freakazoid" Abadir and Ghost.
FaZeGhost| FaZe |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Nikola 'NiKo' Kovač |
33 - 17 | +16 | 117.5 | 80.0% | 1.78 |
 Dauren 'AdreN' Kystaubayev |
18 - 23 | -5 | 77.5 | 70.0% | 0.89 |
 Ladislav 'GuardiaN' Kovács |
18 - 20 | -2 | 56.6 | 56.7% | 0.85 |
 Håvard 'rain' Nygaard |
16 - 22 | -6 | 60.6 | 66.7% | 0.82 |
| Olof 'olofmeister' Kajbjer |
15 - 23 | -8 | 57.9 | 63.3% | 0.72 |
| Ghost |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Matthew 'WARDELL' Yu |
25 - 15 | +10 | 87.5 | 73.3% | 1.46 |
| Joshua 'steel' Nissan |
23 - 21 | +2 | 84.1 | 80.0% | 1.19 |
| Ryan 'freakazoid' Abadir |
20 - 20 | +0 | 76.6 | 63.3% | 1.01 |
| Kenneth 'koosta' Suen |
18 - 21 | -3 | 71.2 | 66.7% | 0.99 |
| Jason 'neptune' Tran |
19 - 23 | -4 | 64.9 | 56.7% | 0.86 |
Ghost were less fortunate in the winners' match between the two North American teams, which Liquid won handily. With this, the first day of play met it's end.
Astute readers may notice that the matches described above do not constitute two GSL groups being played in full, and they would be correct. As a result of all the delays, not all of the originally scheduled best-of-ones were played, due to the venue needing to service it's primary reason for existence.
The (alleged) schedule for today's matches is as follows:
| Sunday, January 20th | ||
| 1:00 PM |  Luminosity vs  FaZe |
BO1 |
| 1:00 PM | Cloud9 vs Fnatic |
BO1 |
| 2:30 PM | Ghost vs Luminosity/ FaZe winner |
BO1 |
| 4:00 PM | Liquid vs Cloud9/ Fnatic winner |
BO3 |
| 7:00 PM | Semifinal #2 | BO3 |
| 10:00 PM | Grand Final | BO3 |
