Aurora romp past M80 in EWC elimination match

kyxsan's troops will face JiJieHao on Saturday for a spot in the playoffs.

Aurora have kept their Esports World Cup campaign afloat after securing a comfortable 2-0 victory over M80 in their Group A elimination match (13-9 Dust2, 13-9 Inferno).

The newly international side had stumbled against BIG in their opening best-of-one, continuing a string of mixed results since bringing on Damjan "⁠kyxsan⁠" Stoilkovski and Jimi "⁠Jimpphat⁠" Salo , and Ashley "⁠ash⁠" Battye made no secret of his frustration as he witnessed sloppy errors and poor planning that he hadn't seen in practice.

There were still moments like those that ash will likely want to review, but they were few and far between amidst a dominant series from Ismailcan "⁠XANTARES⁠" Dörtkardeş . The Turkish rifler was unstoppable from the outset, drumming up a 7-3 opening duels record on Dust2, 23 frags, seven multi-kills, and a 1.67 rating.

That, combined with a 5-0 opening duel record from Özgür "⁠woxic⁠" Eker and a 4-1 record from Jimpphat , ensured Aurora eventually closed out their pick from an 11-5 lead despite a 1v3 AWP clutch from Elias "⁠s1n⁠" Stein helping close the gap in the second half.

The German in-game leader then struggled immensely on Inferno, where XANTARES again ran rampant with eight multi-kills, a 24-12 K-D, and 1.68 rating as Aurora eased to an 8-4 lead at the break. A pistol win extended that lead, and a 1v2 by woxic set his team on match point before another last-ditch recovery effort by M80 was put to bed.