T1 takes home Red Bull Home Ground trophy over Cloud9

T1 T1 Korea Rank #2 stax Kim Gu-taek (김구택) Meteor Kim Tae-oh (김태오) Sylvan Go Young-sup (고영섭) BuZz Yu Byeong-cheol (유병철) iZu Ham Woo-ju (함우주) defeated Cloud9 Cloud9 North America Rank #7 Xeppaa Erick Bach v1c Victor Truong mitch Mitch Semago neT Michael Bernet OXY Francis Hoang 3-1 in the grand finals of Red Bull Home Ground #5 with strong wins on Bind and Haven after narrowly closing out Abyss.

The Koreans managed to show up in the series despite an abysmal 25% pistol win rate with excellent gun rounds and by coming out on top in individual duels.

T1 and Cloud9 opted to use their singular bans on Sunset and Ascent respectively before alternating picks for the best-of-five series.

Flashes of brilliance from BuZz 's Yoru opened up Abyss, T1's first pick. T1 took a 4-1 lead thanks to their layered Breach stuns and Yoru flashes before a timeout was forced out from C9 coach Immi . Although aggressive plays from OXY and moose gave C9 a short string of three rounds, T1 had the lead at halftime with a 7-5 score.

An explosive 4K from OXY to win the second pistol was immediately responded to with a full eco win from T1. A huge 1v3 from Rossy in round 17 dragged C9 back into the game after going down 6-10. BuZz followed by bringing out the Operator and finding two picks in the following round to reset C9's economy. Some hero plays from Rossy and OXY forced out a timeout from Autumn before T1 closed out the first map 13-10.

The trio of BuZz, Sylvan , and iZu provided dividends for T1 and made up for uncharacteristically absent performances from Meteor and stax . BuZz was the match MVP, topping the server with a 1.39 rating, 314 ACS, and 25 kills.

T1 once again struggled on Pearl to start as five straight B hits in a row from C9 put them up 5-0. Two separate thrifty rounds followed from T1 to give them a chance to bring the half to a respectable deficit. iZu's Operator and impact kills from Sylvan closed the gap to just two rounds as C9 led 7-5 at halftime.

A v1c 3K paved the way for another C9 pistol, their third of the series, to go up 9-5. A ridiculous entry 3K from BuZz was just a bump in the road for C9 as OXY answered back with a 3K of his own in the following round. Although a closer affair than T1's game against FUT, Cloud9 comfortably tied up the series 1-1 with a 13-8 on Pearl.

OXY and v1c were the standouts for C9 on the second map with 22 and 18 kills respectively, while both recorded a server high 86% KAST. Both had to overcome strong showings from their Neon and Astra counterparts, BuZz and Sylvan, and did so triumphantly.

A fourth pistol from Cloud9 opened up T1's second pick, Bind, a map they had previously demolished FUT on earlier in the day. While Rossy pushed his team towards a 5-3 lead, stax pulled off an incredible 1v4 to tie up the map 5-5. The score was sitting on a knife-edge at 6-6 before halftime.

C9 proved they were still the pistol gods with their fifth pistol win in the series to go up 8-6. This time around it was Sylvan who provided the hero play for T1 to take a slight lead at 9-8 and prevent C9 from abusing the B site. Multikill after multikill came C9's way from T1 to put the Koreans on map point 12-8. A seventh straight round came the way of T1 to close out Bind 13-8 and put T1 on series point at 2-1.

Despite losing both pistols, T1 managed to be dominant in the gun rounds to push themselves over the line. The quartet of Meteor, stax, Sylvan, and BuZz took turns contributing to their team's success with Meteor being the MVP of the map with a 1.25 rating and 166 ADR.

OXY had a rare weak performance on the third map despite his explosive pistol round, picking up just 9 kills in the game to bottom out the scoreboard.

The fourth map, Haven, kicked off with yet another C9 pistol before a saviour BuZz 4K tied up the score at 2-2. A 1v2 from stax stopped a string of traded rounds to give T1 a lead at 5-3. C9 had no way of dealing with impenetrable A post-plant setups from T1 as the Pacific reps grabbed an 8-4 first half.

T1 grabbed an ever-elusive second pistol thanks to a stax 1v2 to go within touching distance of the trophy at 10-4. Map point at 12-6 came soon after as BuZz and stax put in the work to ensure a trophy lift.

BuZz was far and away the finals MVP with a 1.39 series rating, 170 ADR, and an absurd 20/6 first kill to first death ratio.

T1 are the champions of Red Bull Home Ground #5.