Young guns shine for 00 Nation in Brazilian grudge match
Epitacio "TACO" de Melo's 00 Nation have claimed the first win in what could be a new rivalry between the players of the legendary former Luminosity/SK quintet. While all eyes were likely on the veteran players taking the field today, the best of three series was ultimately won in large part by 00 Nation's young guns in a scrappy bout.
The series started off on 00 Nation's map pick of Ancient, with Imperial starting the proceedings by winning their opening CT-side pistol and the following two rounds. The next twelve rounds were a scrappy affair, with the two Brazilian squads trading blows before 00 Nation ultimately coming out ahead 8-7.
After switching sides, Imperial started things off by winning their second pistol round of the series before 00 Nation came back in impressive form to win the next five rounds in a row. With the momentum on their side, and an impressive CT-side performance from Eduardo "dumau" Wolkmer backing them, 00 Nation claimed Ancient 16-12.
Moving onto Overpass, Imperial started their T-side off by winning another pistol round before struggling against a determined effort from 00 Nation to win the half 9-6. In the second half of Overpass, despite going 4/4 in the pistol rounds, the match began to fall apart for Imperial as they looked to force a third map.
While Ancient was dumau's playground, Overpass was Santino "try" Rigal and Bruno "latto" Rebelatto's domain as they powered 00 Nation to a 16-12 win, posting 1.40 and 1.38 ratings, respectively.
00NATIONImperial| 00NATION |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Santino 'try' Rigal |
47 - 28 | +19 | 80.8 | 76.8% | 1.30 |
 Bruno 'latto' Rebelatto |
41 - 26 | +15 | 78.6 | 69.6% | 1.24 |
| Eduardo 'dumau' Wolkmer |
37 - 37 | +0 | 83.4 | 82.1% | 1.17 |
| Epitacio 'TACO' de Melo |
26 - 31 | -5 | 59.5 | 69.6% | 0.95 |
| Marcelo 'coldzera' David |
27 - 33 | -6 | 54.2 | 73.2% | 0.89 |
| Imperial |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lincoln 'fnx' Lau |
37 - 34 | +3 | 78.2 | 67.9% | 1.13 |
| Ricardo 'boltz' Prass |
34 - 34 | +0 | 75.1 | 73.2% | 1.01 |
| Vinicius 'VINI' Figueiredo |
28 - 36 | -8 | 51.8 | 62.5% | 0.86 |
| Fernando 'fer' Alvarenga |
25 - 38 | -13 | 54.9 | 64.3% | 0.82 |
| Gabriel 'FalleN' Toledo |
31 - 38 | -7 | 59.6 | 69.6% | 0.81 |
With their win over Imperial, 00 Nation have advanced onto the group stage of IEM Cologne. The new squad have a massive challenge ahead of them as they are set to face off against FaZe in their opening series tomorrow at 06:30AM.
