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mousesports have piled more misery on the North American scene after beating Cloud9 2-0 (16-11 on de_inferno and 16-10 on de_cache).

The opening map of the series was de_inferno, where mousesports came out the brighter by winning the first four rounds. Cloud9 then replied by bagging their first round of the game, but they were immediately pegged back by the German side, who restored a four-round lead.

Strong individual plays from Sean "⁠seang@res⁠" Gares and Kory "⁠SEMPHIS⁠" Friesen then powered Cloud9 to turn the tide in the match as eight of the following rounds went the way of the home side, who were enjoying a 9-6 lead at the end of the half.

Now playing on the CT side, mouz were in complete control during the early stages of the half as Cloud9 found themselves unable to break through the Germans' stern defence. A quad kill from Mike "⁠shroud⁠" Grzesiek in the 25th round inside A gave his team a lifeline, but mouz immediately regained control of the proceedings to walk away with a 16-11 victory.

mouz progress to the Upper semi-finals 

de_cache, Cloud9's choice of map, was the one that followed, and here the North American side simply got off to a flying start by taking a 6-0 lead. But just when many certainly thought that the team would go on to equalise the series, the German side picked itself up and rallied to cut the gap to just one round before the break.

mouz then played out a flawless pistol round as CT, which allowed them to take the lead for the first time on this map, before Cloud9 won the first full gun round of the half.

But a triple kill from Johannes "⁠tabseN⁠" Wodarz stopped Cloud9 from winning back-to-back rounds, leaving the North Americans' economy in shambles. A timeout at 9-13 by C9 did nothing to change the course of the game, and so Shahzeb "⁠ShahZaM⁠" Khan's side will join CLG, Luminosity and Nihilum in the Lower Bracket after what was a disastrous day for North American Counter-Strike.

ESEA Invite Season 18 Global FinalsBest of 3 MOUZMatchpage 2 0 18th April 2015 Cloud9 16Inferno 11 16Cache 10

Shahzeb 'ShahZaM' Khan Age: 21 Team: Cloud9 Rating 1.0: 0.98 Maps played: 65 KPR: 0.69 DPR: 0.69 Johannes 'tabseN' Wodarz Age: 20 Team: Playing Ducks Rating 1.0: 0.99 Maps played: 291 KPR: 0.69 DPR: 0.70 Kory 'SEMPHIS' Friesen Age: 25 Team: Cloud9 Rating 1.0: 1.00 Maps played: 171 KPR: 0.72 DPR: 0.71 Sean 'seang@res' Gares Age: 26 Team: Cloud9 Rating 1.0: 0.88 Maps played: 141 KPR: 0.59 DPR: 0.67 Mike 'shroud' Grzesiek Age: 20 Team: Cloud9 Rating 1.0: 1.06 Maps played: 78 KPR: 0.73 DPR: 0.66