After a pretty long break, Tier 1 CS is back with a giant IEM tournament in the Lone Star State. 16 teams entered the latest Grand Slam Showdown, but only one could reign supreme. Who won, who lost? Keep reading to find out! IEM Dallas 2024 is also the first T1 tournament to feature Dust 2 in a long while, as the classic map replaced Overpass in the active duty map pool.

Recap

Group A

Group A was a competitive one with Mouz, G2, Liquid and Vitality headlining and 9z, Falcons, Complexity, and Monte looking to make some upsets. And upsets we saw. In the first game of the group. Mouz lost to the scrappy South American mix of 9z, while Liquid handled business against Complexity, G2 beat Falcons, and Vitality survived against Monte in overtime.

In the lower bracket, Mouz sent Complexity packing, while Monte couldn’t convert their strong showing against Vitality, losing 2-0 to Falcons. In the upper bracket, 9z continued to show up, beating Liquid 2-1, including an overtime win on Nuke, while Vitality sent G2 to the lower bracket with an easy 2-0 win, guaranteeing at least a quarterfinal appearance.

In the second lower-bracket round, MOUZ couldn’t quite handle G2, losing 2-1, meaning that the number one ranked team heading into the tournament was out early. Falcons couldn’t keep up against a strong Liquid showing, sending them packing.

In the upper bracket, 9z shocked the world once again, beating Vitality 2-0 and earning themselves a surprising spot in the semis. In the lower bracket, a tight game saw Liquid lose to G2, eliminating the last NA representatives from the tournament.

Group B

Group B saw FaZe, Virtus.Pro, Spirit, and Major Champions Na’Vi competing against M80, Heroic, FlyQuest and BIG. The favorites won easily in the opening round, as FaZe beat M80 13-6, VP delivered a 13-4 to Heroic, Na’vi handled BIG with a 13-9 win and finally, Spirit absolutely STOMPED the Aussies from FlyQuest 13-1.

Heading into the lower bracket, everything kept going as expected. Heroic beat M80 2-0, while BIG did the same to the scrappy underdogs from down under. In the upper bracket, FaZe outlasted VP 2-1, with one map going the distance and one going to overtime. Spirit didn’t screw around with Na’Vi, beating them in a quick 2-0.

Heading to the lower bracket, our first shocker of the bracket came as Heroic eliminated the Major Champs in a quick 2-0, promptly followed by another upset as BIG edged out VP in a surprisingly uncompetitive 2-1.

Finally, in the end Spirit advanced to the semis by beating FaZe convincingly, while HEROIC handled BIG, sending them back to Germany.

The Knockouts

The knockout stage was thus set up as follows:

QF1: Faze vs G2	QF2: Vitality vs Heroic
SF1: 9z vs QF1 winner	SF2: Spirit vs QF2 winner

Both quarterfinals ended pretty quick, as G2 took the returning Dust2 and Nuke with ease… and the same thing happened for Vitality against Heroic in reverse order. The semi-final bye seems to be a curse that works against the group winners, as 9z ended their reign of upset terror beaten 2-0 on Inferno and Dust2, while Spirit couldn’t get through Vitality on the classic map duo of Dust2 and Mirage.

The final (which was BO3 instead of the usual IEM BO5) saw a group stage rematch between Vitality and G2, with the latter picking Inferno, while the former picked Anubis. Nuke was left over as a tiebreaker, and off we went. Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov absolutely dominated the server on all three maps, as G2 won their pick 19-16 in double overtime, before falling to Vitality in another overtime on Anubis. Nuke was left over, and after a dead even first half, G2 took the CT-side and ran with it, winning 13-8 and becoming IEM Dallas 2024 champions, with m0NESY winning MVP.

Our Takeaways

Dust2 makes a massive comeback

Ever wondered if pro teams missed Dust2? Well, they frickin’ did. It was played 11 times, making it the third most played map, behind Nuke and Ancient. It also seems to have fazed out Vertigo in a lot of teams’ setups, as it was only played once. What’s more, Dust2 still seems to have the magic it used to have, as it was by the most even map of the tournament, with CTs only winning less than 52% of the rounds (we’re not counting the one match on Vertigo, since, it’s not really representative). Love it or hate it, it seems to be back for good. Now kick out Vertigo in favor of Train. Volvo, plz fix.

South America has arrived

We’ve never quite seen a team like 9z. Made up of Argentinians, Uruguayans and a Spaniard, they’re the first non-Brazilian South American team to really make a splash. And what a splash they’ve made, storming through the group stage. Unfortunately, they couldn’t go all the way, but it’s a good start for an interesting future for the team and region.

Falling out of favor

After spectacular showings of late, Na’Vi and MOUZ seem to have cooled down. Is this going to continue, or is this just a small hiccup, courtesy of jetlag and a few surprising opponents. That remains to be seen.

Falcons can’t fly

Despite swapping Mohammad “BOROS” Malhas for Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen, Falcons continue to flounder under pressure. The Saudi-funded roster still can’t find their footing despite an increasingly star-studded cast under legendary coach Danny “zoniic” Sorensen. Not a good look for what was supposed to be a new CS2 powerhouse. Will they ever achieve success? We kinda doubt it.

Conclusion

And that’s it for this one! What did you think of IEM Dallas 2024? Who do you think will prevail in the upcoming Esports World Cup? Let us know on our socials!