Legacy, BetBoom grab semifinal berths at Intel Extreme Masters Atlanta

They didn't get their third sweep in as many matches, but Legacy nonetheless completed a perfect run through group play at the Intel Extreme Masters Atlanta on Wednesday, beating Natus Vincere 2-1 in the Group B final to grab a spot in the semifinals of the playoffs.

BetBoom Team grabbed the other semifinal automatic bid, winning Group A with a 2-1 win over paiN Gaming.

The $300,000 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive event features 16 teams divided into two groups for the double-elimination opening round. The group winners (Legacy and BetBoom) advanced to the playoff semifinals. The group runners-up will play as the high seeds in the quarterfinals as high seeds while the third-place team from each group will be their opponents as the low seeds.

All matches are best-of-three until the best-of-five grand final on Sunday. The winning side will receive $125,000.

Legacy opened with a 13-11 win on Inferno but Natus Vincere answered with a 13-8 win on Ancient. In the deciding map, Legacy rolled to a 13-6 win on Dust II. Bruno "latto" Rebelatto led the all-Brazilian Legacy squad with 52 kills and a plus-12 kill-death differential. Ukrainians Ihor "w0nderful" Zhdanov and Valeriy "b1t" Vakhovskiy led all players with 54 and 53 kills, respectively, in the loss.

In the Group A upper-bracket final, BetBoom took Dust II 13-11 before paiN answered with a 13-6 win on Nuke. Like Legacy, BetBoom dominated the winner-take-all final map, taking Anubis 13-5. Timur "FL4MUS" Marev of the all-Russian BetBoom side turned in a dominant performance with 57 kills to lead all players.

The rest of the bracket was filled out by a pair of teams that pulled off back-to-back sweeps to earn the low seeds.

In Group A, Team Vitality first beat FaZe Clan 16-14 on Nuke and 13-5 on Dust II, then stopped B8 13-5 on Mirage and 13-8 on Dust II in the lower-bracket final. B8 swept FUT Esports in the other lower-bracket semi, winning 13-7 on Ancient and 13-11 on Overpass.

GamerLegion topped Team Liquid 2-0 on one Group B lower-bracket semi, winning 13-9 on Mirage and 13-6 on Nuke, and Astralis did the same to SINNERS Esports in the other semi, winning 13-11 on Mirage and 13-8 on Inferno. The lower-bracket final was all GamerLegion, however, as they won 13-3 on Mirage and 13-8 on Ancient.

Play resumes Friday with a pair of quarterfinals -- Natus Vincere vs. Team Vitality (with the winner facing BetBoom on Saturday) and paiN vs. GamerLegion for the right to face Legacy in the other semi.

Intel Extreme Masters Atlanta prize pool

1. $125,000

2. $50,000

3. $30,000

4. $20,000

5-6. $12,500

7-8. $7,000 -- B8, Astralis

9-12. $5,000 -- FUT Esports, FaZe Clan, SINNERS Esports, Team Liquid

13-16. $4,000 -- BC.Game Esports, NRG, Passion UA, M80

--Field Level Media