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MOUZ won the Group C decider match and Heroic and BIG emerged from Group D to finalize the eight-team playoff stage at the Thunderpick World Championship on Tuesday.

MOUZ beat Complexity Gaming 2-1 to earn second place in Group C and advance to the playoffs. Heroic beat BIG 2-1 to win Group D, but BIG bounced back by defeating FURIA Esports 2-1 in the decider match to take the second playoff berth.

Sixteen teams were divided into four double-elimination groups of four at the $500,000 event. The top two teams from each group will advance to the playoffs, a single-elimination bracket that concludes Nov. 5. All matches are best-of-three.

On Tuesday, MOUZ opened with a 13-3 rout on Nuke, but Complexity responded with a 13-9 result on Overpass. The final map was Inferno, where MOUZ repeated its first performance and ran away 13-2. David “frozen” Cernansky of Slovakia racked up 55 kills on a plus-29 kills-to-deaths differential to lead MOUZ.

FURIA started its day with a 2-0 elimination match win over Nouns Esports (13-5 on Vertigo, 13-7 on Mirage). Marcelo “chelo” Cespedes led the all-Brazilian squad with 34 kills in that match.

In the Group D winners match, BIG opened with a 13-9 result on Ancient, but Heroic rallied with scores of 13-7 on Nuke and 13-9 on Vertigo to grab the victory. Denmark’s Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen tallied 60 kills on a plus-21 K-D for Heroic.

BIG moved into the decider match to face FURIA and sandwiched a 13-8 triumph on Ancient and a 13-5 win on Vertigo around FURIA’s 16-14 squeaker on Overpass. BIG had three players from Germany post 48 kills in the match: Karim “Krimbo” Moussa (plus-11), Elias “s1n” Stein (plus-7) and Johannes “tabseN” Wodarz (plus-3).

The playoff stage begins Friday with the four quarterfinal matches:
–Cloud9 vs. BIG
–FaZe Clan vs. MOUZ
–Team Spirit vs. Monte
–Heroic vs. Virtus.pro

Group stage standings (W-L, point differential):
Group A
1. Cloud9, 2-0, plus-10
2. Virtus.pro, 2-1, plus-16
3. Fnatic, 1-2, minus-9 (eliminated)
4. Ninjas in Pyjamas, 0-2, minus-17 (eliminated)

Group B
1. FaZe Clan, 2-0, plus-23
2. Monte, 2-1, plus-16
3. SAW, 1-2, minus-9 (eliminated)
4. Wildcard Gaming, 0-2, minus-30 (eliminated)

Group C
1. Team Spirit, 2-0, plus-22
2. MOUZ, 2-1, plus-16
3. Complexity Gaming, 1-2, minus-18 (eliminated)
4. M80, 0-2, minus-20 (eliminated)

Group D
1. Heroic, 2-0, plus-21
2. BIG, 2-1, plus-24
3. FURIA Esports, 1-2, minus-16 (eliminated)
4. Nouns Esports, 0-2, minus-29 (eliminated)

Thunderpick World Championship prize pool
1. $250,000
2. $100,000
3-4. $50,000
5-8. $12,500
9-12. no prize money — Fnatic, SAW, Complexity Gaming, FURIA Esports
13-16. no prize money — Ninjas in Pyjamas, Wildcard Gaming, M80, Nouns Esports

–Field Level Media