Virtus.pro land in Group A upper-bracket final at IEM Katowice

Virtus.pro rallied for a 2-1 victory over Eternal Fire on Sunday to reach the Group A upper-bracket final at the Intel Extreme Masters Katowice event in Poland.

After falling 13-9 on Anubis, Virtus.pro took Dust II 13-10 and Train 16-13 to avoid falling into the lower bracket. Kaisar "ICY" Faiznurov of Kazakhstan led the way for the winners with 52 kills and a plus-10 kill-death differential.

Virtus.pro are off to face Team Vitality, which edged FaZe Clan 2-1 in the other upper-bracket semifinal on Sunday. Vitality put together a 13-3 blowout on Nuke, dropped Anubis 13-10 and prevailed 19-16 on Dust II to spoil FaZe's comeback bid.

Group play has 16 teams split into two double-elimination brackets, with all matches best-of-three. The two group-phase winners will advance directly to the playoff semifinals, the two group-phase runners-up will move to the quarterfinals as high seeds and the two third-place teams will make the quarterfinals as low seeds.

The playoffs will be single elimination, with best-of-three matches for the quarterfinals and semifinals ahead of a best-of-five grand final next Sunday. The champion will earn $400,000.

In other Group A action, 3DMAX blanked BIG 2-0 in the lower-bracket quarterfinals, where G2 Esports came away with a 2-1 win over Team Falcons. 3DMAX is set to face Eternal Fire in the lower-bracket semifinals, while G2 Esports has FaZe Clan on deck.

Two Group B upper-bracket quarterfinal matches were held on Sunday, with Team Spirit topping Astralis 2-0 and The MongolZ coming from behind to defeat Team Liquid 2-1.

Team Spirit cruised to wins on Nuke (13-5) and Dust II (13-4). The MongolZ lost 13-10 on Nuke before pulling off a 13-8 victory on Mirage and a 13-11 triumph on Ancient.

Group-stage action continues Monday with six matches:

--FaZe Clan vs. G2 Esports (Group A lower-bracket semifinal)

--Eternal Fire vs. 3DMAX (Group A lower-bracket semifinal)

--Team Spirit vs. Natus Vincere (Group B upper-bracket semifinal)

--GamerLegion vs. The MongolZ (Group B upper-bracket semifinal)

--Astralis vs. FURIA Esports (Group B lower-bracket quarterfinal)

--MOUZ vs. Team Liquid (Group B lower-bracket quarterfinal)

Intel Extreme Masters Katowice prize pool:

1. $400,000

2. $180,000

3-4. $80,000

5-6. $40,000

7-8. $24,000

9-12. $16,000

13-16. $10,000 -- Team Falcons, BIG, TBD, TBD

17-20. $4,500 -- Wildcard, paiN Gaming, MIBR, HEROIC

21-24. $2,500 -- Complexity, FlyQuest, SAW, Imperial Female

--Field Level Media