Last night Ground Zero took on Breakaway Esports to determine which of them will face AVANT in the Grand Finals of the LPL CSGO ANZ Championship. How well did my predictions for the semifinal go? Spoilers: Not great.

Overpass (Ground Zero 16-14)

Breakaway Esports picked Overpass as the first map and looked to be really strong on their opening T-side, managing to constantly break through the defense of Ground Zero. There was no major stand-out performance on Breakaway, they were all doing their part and helping out the team get and hold the lead. Breakaway picked up not only the first 3 rounds, but a total of 9 in the first half to leave the score at 9-6.

In the second half, Breakaway defused in the bomb in pistol round to bring the score to 10-6 and inevitably are in a position to run away with the game. Ground Zero says "No" and through some amazing performances by zemp, void and, the man I was unsure about, MoeycQ, Ground Zero fought back on their T-side. Round by round Ground Zero clawed back - first to a tie, and then they took the lead, and then they got match point.

On match point it was 15-11, Ground Zero had done the impossible and brought the map back from the brink, but Breakaway are not going down without a fight and pulled the game into the 30th and final round with overtime potentially looming. Luckily for Ground Zero, overtime wasn't required as they were able to overpower Breakaway one last time, win their opponents map pick and end Overpass 16-14.

Nuke (Breakaway 16-8)

Predictably Ground Zero picked one of their favourite maps, Nuke, to be the second map, but that means that Breakaway got to choose to start on the traditionally stronger CT-side. This could have been their downfall, because if Ground Zero expected to walk over Breakaway on this map, they were sorely mistaken as it was the exact opposite and Breakaway were up 10-5 at the halfway point of the game.

In the second half Breakaway moved over to T-Side and captured the second half pistol and inevitably are in a position to run away with the game...sound familiar? This time though Breakaway didn't have any issues closing it out and only let 3 rounds slip through their fingers on the way to securing Nuke 16-8 in the only dominant win of this series and on Ground Zero's map pick.

Mirage (Ground Zero 16-14)

Both teams won each others map pick and now it is time to go onto Mirage, which I described yesterday as a "relatively even playing field". For this third and final map, HaZR from Breakaway woke up, went absolutely ham, and ended on top of the scoreboard for the entire game with an ADR (Average Damage per Round) of 105.6.

The first pistol round went the way of Breakaway on the CT-side and from there they became a rolling ball of momentum as they picked up the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eight rounds in a row. With the score 8-0, Breakaway are inevitably in a position to run away with the game...yes...again. Every single one of the maps in this series Breakaway had a good and solid lead.

The dynamic duo from Ground Zero of void and zemp were not going to let the Grand Finals opportunity disappear and helped their team to win 12 of the next 14 rounds, including the second half pistol round. Now the tables had turned and Ground Zero were up 12-10. This is the point were the game was switched into the next gear and both teams brought their absolute best and began to trade rounds back and forth. Round trading favours the team in the lead and that was the outcome in this case with Ground Zero being the first team to reach the magical number 16, securing the third map, the series and the Grand Final slot against AVANT.

How To Watch

The Grand Final between Ground Zero and AVANT will take place on at on Twitch.tv/LetsPlayLive worldwide.