Team Vitality, Team Spirit to clash in IEM Rio grand final

Team Vitality and Team Spirit advanced to the grand final with semifinal victories Saturday at the $300,000 Intel Extreme Masters Rio event in Brazil.

Vitality blanked FURIA and Spirit did the same to Team Falcons. FURIA and Team Falcons will meet in the third-place match on Sunday before Vitality and Spirit face off in the grand final.

Sixteen Counter-Strike 2 teams have been competing this week for a top prize of $125,000.

The double-elimination group stage began with two groups of eight teams, with all matches best-of-three. The group winners advanced to the playoff semifinals, with the group runners-up entering the quarterfinals as high seeds and the third-place teams entering the quarterfinals as low seeds.

In the single-elimination playoffs, all matches have been best-of-three until Sunday's best-of-five grand final.

On Saturday, Vitality took out FURIA 13-10 on both Overpass and Ancient. Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut of France paced the winning side with a 49-27 kill-death differential. For FURIA, Kaike "KSCERATO" Cerato of Brazil posted a 36-28 K-D differential.

Spirit cruised past Team Falcons 13-7 on Dust II and 13-4 on Mirage, led by Russian Boris "magixx" Vorobiev's K-D differential of 31-17. Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov of Russia led Falcons with a 28-27 K-D differential.

Play continues Sunday with the final two matches:

--Team Vitality vs. Team Spirit (grand final)

--FURIA vs. Team Falcons (third-place match)

IEM Rio prize pool:

1. $125,000

2. $50,000

3. $30,000

4. $20,000

5-6. $12,500 -- MOUZ, Natus Vincere

7-8. $7,000 -- G2 Esports, Aurora Gaming

9-12. $5,000 -- RED Canids, 3DMAX, B8, HOTU

13-16. $4,000 -- Gentle Mates, Team Liquid, Passion UA, Legacy

--Field Level Media