aspas carries MIBR across the line to eliminate KRÜ

MIBR MIBR Brazil Unranked artzin Arthur Araujo xenom Eduardo Soeiro cortezia Gabriel Cortez nzr Agustin Ibarra aspas Erick Santos has taken down KRÜ Esports KRÜ Esports Latin America South Unranked keznit Angelo Mori Mazino Roberto Rivas adverso Benjamín Poblete Shyy Fabian Usnayo Melser Marco Eliot Machuca Amaro in the lower bracket of Americas Kickoff. They survive elimination, and earn a match against Sentinels Sentinels North America Unranked N4RRATE Marshall Massey bang Sean Bezerra Zellsis Jordan Montemurro zekken Zachary Patrone johnqt Mohamed Amine Ouarid for a chance at Masters Bangkok qualification.

The series went to three maps, playing out on Bind, Abyss, and Split. KRÜ took their map pick of Bind 13-8, while MIBR took maps two and three 13-8 and 13-11.

This matchup pitted the final South American teams against each other: the last Brazilian team of MIBR taking on the last LATAM team of KRÜ.

On KRÜ's map pick of Bind, it was MIBR that started out hot. Winning the pistol and bonus round, they jumped out to a 4-0 start, forcing an early timeout from KRÜ. The timeout proved to be a game changer, as they quickly brought back the score to tie MIBR at 5-5. It took a heroic 2v4 round from Aspas to find another round, bringing the half to 6-6.

Continuing their momentum from the first half, KRÜ started their defense with their own streak of four rounds. A crucial two kills from keznit with a sherrif helped KRÜ recover a disadvantage on the pistol round. Then, a Melser 4k halted MIBR's first attacking gun round to convert his team the bonus. From there, KRÜ racked up the scoreline, swiftly finishing the map out 13-8. Shyy was the highest performer on KRÜ, putting up a 1.89 rating on Vyse. aspas was close behind with a 1.76 rating, but was the only bright spot for MIBR on the map.

Next was MIBR's map pick of Abyss. KRÜ continued their form from Bind by winning the first two rounds, but MIBR responded with three of their own. KRÜ won the next round to tie the score at 3-3. It was then that aspas began walking on water. First, he won a 3k solo retake, followed by an ace with the Bladestorm in the next round. From there, it was consistent value with the Operator that let MIBR take an 8-4 lead on the defense side of the normally attackers favored map.

In the second half, MIBR's read of KRÜ's pistol allowed them to take the first round with ease. With a 10-4 lead, the map was all but secured. Shyy and adverso fought back to bring the score closer, but back-to-back triple kills from cortezia helped put the map away 13-8. aspas finished the map with a 29-9 K/D and a monstrous 2.02 rating.

Heading to the final map of split, MIBR once again started out in the driver's seat. Their attack side spearheaded by the double duelists of aspas and artzin gave them an 8-4 lead at the half.

A second pistol win in the second half let MIBR climb up to an 11-5 lead. However, KRÜ began to mount a comeback, slowly chipping away at their deficit. An aspas triple kill helped MIBR convert a low buy to find match point at 12-8, but KRÜ were determined to go the distance. Finally, in the last round of regulation, a 2v2 retake by artzin and nzr closed out the map, winning the series for MIBR.

aspas, for the third time in the series, put up a dominant map performance. Another 29 kills on the map secured him the VCT record for the most kills in a best of three. Alongside a +46 K/D differential, he boasted a total of 82 kills across the series, beating out the previous record of 78 (also held by aspas).

With this result, KRÜ is eliminated from Kickoff, and will have to wait until Stage 1 for their next match. For their fourth-place finish, they earn one Championship Point, which will aid them in qualifying for Champions. MIBR advances to the lower final, where they will face Sentinels, who just came off a stomp from G2 Esports G2 Esports North America Unranked jawgemo Alexander Mor trent Trent Cairns valyn Jacob Batio JonahP Jonah Pulice leaf Nathan Orf in the upper final. The winner of this match will join G2 as representatives for the Americas at Masters Bangkok.