After a dominant first map and a loss on Split, Gambit Esports closed things out on the third map to defeat Vision Strikers today and advance to the semifinals of VCT Masters Berlin.

A match that VALORANT fans expected to be a nail-biter turned into a near-stomp after the first map showed a dominant Gambit. Ayaz “nAts” Akhmetshin had a standout game, especially on Bind.

Gambit came out swinging in the first map. Gambit gave Vision Strikers no time to respond and nAts spent the map finding and instantly killing anything that moved. The momentum kept going for Gambit and they only gave up two rounds to Vision Strikers in the first half of Bind.

The second half of Bind went by in the blink of an eye. Three rounds after the half, Gambit claimed their first map, 13-2, and prepared for their map pick, Split.

Kim “Lakia” Jong-min was subbed out for Lee “k1Ng” Seung-won and Vision Strikers started waking up. Gambit didn’t get much done on their attack. Vision Strikers kept shutting them down before they could even get the spike down. The score was 8-4 at the end of the half.

The second half of Split started off with a bang, literally, at the hands of Nikita “d3ffo” Sudakov. With one shot down, a smoke went up. But that was no problem for d3ffo, who got another kill by blindly shooting into it.

Gambit only took two rounds before Kim “stax” Gu-taek started winning one-vs-two situations just when it looked like Gambit were going to take the round. Although many expected Gambit to have a stronger defensive side, Vision Strikers took the second map 13-7.

Map three on Icebox saw Vision Strikers come out the gate swinging, but the map started tilting toward Gambit midway through the first half. They took seven rounds in a row, but halftime seemed to halt their momentum since Vision Strikers started putting up more of a fight and taking more rounds.

Gambit were consistently able to push Vision Strikers out of position to take down players quickly. Between d3ffo with the Operator and Timofey “Chronicle” Khromov, Vision Strikers were unable to adapt quickly enough and Gambit took the map 13-8 to send Vision Strikers home and advance to the semifinals.

Tomorrow, Gambit will face the winner of G2 Esports vs. KRÜ Esports in the semifinals.

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