9z brought an end to BETBOOM's campaign at ESL Pro League Season 24 after securing a comfortable 2-0 victory in the 1-2 pool (13-8 Dust2, 13-9 Mirage).
Maximiliano "max" Gonzalez's men have struggled to find consistency since their trophy lift at XSE Pro League Guangzhou, suffering early exits at Esports World Cup, BLAST Open Porto, and FISSURE Playground 3.
Their Pro League campaign also got off on the wrong foot with a loss to Aurora, and though they bounced back with a commanding win over TYLOO, another one-sided loss to Natus Vincere left 9z staring down another early exit.
Instead, the Argentine squad ended BETBOOM's hopes of a run to the playoffs and are now one series away from securing their own spot in the bracket stage, with the win also providing 39 points on the VRS to help the team climb to 12th.
In a dejected post-match interview, Kirill "Boombl4" Mikhailov admitted that his team didn't play their best in Katowice and faltered in their efforts to correct their form.
That lackluster form was on display throughout the series, which could have ended with much more one-sided scorelines if not for 9z repeatedly squandering advantages. Even with those lost rounds, 9z never looked truly troubled, romping to a 9-3 lead on the T side of Dust2 and eventually stabilizing after BETBOOM closed the gap from an early spree in the second half.
It was the same story on Mirage, where BETBOOM struggled to string rounds together in the first half. They still capitalized on mistakes from 9z to muster five rounds by the break, but couldn't contend once guns came up in the second half as Franco "dgt" Garcia took charge and led 9z to victory.
Franco 'dgt' GarciaPast 3 months
Kirill 'Boombl4' MikhailovPast 3 months
9z
Maximiliano 'max' Gonzalez
Franco 'dgt' Garcia
Ignacio 'meyern' Meyer
Luciano 'luchov' Herrera
Matias 'HUASOPEEK' Ibañez Hernandez
Bruno 'BIT' Fukuda Lima
Natus Vincere
Aleksi 'Aleksib' Virolainen
Mihai 'iM' Ivan
Valeriy 'b1t' Vakhovskiy
Ihor 'w0nderful' Zhdanov
Drin 'makazze' Shaqiri
Andrey 'B1ad3' Gorodenskiy
TYLOO
Yi 'JamYoung' Yang
Dongkai 'Jee' Ji
Jingxiang 'Mercury' Wang
Qianhao 'Moseyuh' Chen
Su 'Zero' Jingshen
WeiJie 'zhokiNg' Zhong
Aurora
Ismailcan 'XANTARES' Dörtkardeş
Özgür 'woxic' Eker
Jimi 'Jimpphat' Salo
Damjan 'kyxsan' Stoilkovski
Ali 'Wicadia' Haydar Yalçın
Ashley 'ash' Battye
Maximiliano 'max' GonzalezPast 3 months
BETBOOM
Kirill 'Boombl4' Mikhailov
Aleksandr 'zorte' Zagodyrenko
Pavel 'S1ren' Ogloblin
Daniil 'd1Ledez' Kustov
Kirill 'Magnojez' Rodnov
Artem 'Fierce' Ivanov