After two maps, Cloud9 came out on top of the regional match-up they had against OpTic. They started out winning the first map, Overpass, 16-8, and then locked Dust2 down, 16-6, to take the match and stay alive in the tournament.
The first round on Overpass went to OpTic, but their lead was immediately cut short as Cloud9 won the forcebuy and took a 3-1 lead after winning an anti-eco. Quickly, Cloud9 started to run away with it, only giving up two rounds to the CTs who were constantly struggling to get some good buys.
With Cloud9 ahead 7-3 and a big buy round in the half coming up, both teams traded players throughout the map ending in a 2vs2 afterplant on A which Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham was able to clutch out against William "RUSH" Wierzba and Peter "stanislaw" Jarguz. With that, Cloud9 were able to increase their lead to 11-4 going into half-time.
After losing the pistol round, it was all but over for OpTic. They did manage to put in a few rounds in a comeback attempt, but Cloud9 shut it down for a 16-8 win.
n0thing & co. didn’t give OpTic a chance
The second map, Dust2, didn’t start out much better for the team in green, as Cloud9 took the pistol round on the CT side and the following two anti-ecos. OpTic were able to react with three rounds of their own to not let the half get away, but Cloud9 quickly got back in the game to maintain the lead, 4-3, and not let the match start to snowball.
A pattern quickly emerged, and that was that OpTic played the rounds well doing a lot of damage and even gaining early round advantage, but kept getting denied by Cloud9 in the end. The buys kept coming as frag money and bomb plants kept their economy up, but Cloud9 just managed to slightly edge out their opponents for a 10-5 half.
Cloud9 then won the pistol round and went ahead 13-5. After trading a couple rounds, Cloud9 got on to match point, 15-6, and closed it down 16-6 to make it to the decider match against Gambit.
DreamHack ZOWIE Open Winter 2016Best of 3 
Cloud9
Matchpage 2 0 25th November 2016 
OpTic 16Overpass 8 16Dust2 6
| Cloud9 | K - D | +/- | ADR | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jordan 'n0thing' Gilbertn0thing | 49 - 28 | +21 | 97.3 | 1.56 |
| Jake 'Stewie2K' YipStewie2K | 38 - 30 | +8 | 102.4 | 1.48 |
| Timothy 'autimatic' Taautimatic | 36 - 27 | +9 | 87.3 | 1.28 |
 Mike 'shroud' Grzesiekshroud | 37 - 24 | +13 | 80.6 | 1.25 |
| Tyler 'Skadoodle' LathamSkadoodle | 29 - 22 | +7 | 72.9 | 1.24 |
| OpTic | K - D | +/- | ADR | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| William 'RUSH' WierzbaRUSH | 32 - 36 | -4 | 78.6 | 1.03 |
| Keith 'NAF' MarkovicNAF | 33 - 35 | -2 | 84.1 | 1.02 |
 Oscar 'mixwell' Cañellasmixwell | 27 - 41 | -14 | 76.8 | 0.82 |
| Tarik 'tarik' Celiktarik | 24 - 38 | -14 | 58.6 | 0.75 |
| Peter 'stanislaw' Jarguzstanislaw | 15 - 40 | -25 | 39.5 | 0.49 |
Tyler 'Skadoodle' Latham 
Age: 23 Team: Cloud9 Rating 1.0: 1.09 Maps played: 575 KPR: 0.70 DPR: 0.58 
Gambit #20 Dauren 'AdreN' Kystaubayev
Danylo 'Zeus' Teslenko
Mihail 'Dosia' StolyarovRustem 'mou' TelepovAbay 'HObbit' Khassenov Peter 'stanislaw' Jarguz 
Age: 22 Team: OpTic Rating 1.0: 1.01 Maps played: 355 KPR: 0.70 DPR: 0.67 Cloud9 #6 Jordan 'n0thing' GilbertTyler 'Skadoodle' LathamMike 'shroud' GrzesiekTimothy 'autimatic' TaJake 'Stewie2K' Yip OpTic #12 William 'RUSH' WierzbaOscar 'mixwell' CañellasPeter 'stanislaw' JarguzKeith 'NAF' MarkovicTarik 'tarik' Celik William 'RUSH' Wierzba 
Age: 22 Team: OpTic Rating 1.0: 1.04 Maps played: 413 KPR: 0.72 DPR: 0.68 (责任编辑：casebattles)
