Ninjas in Pyjamas defeated HEROIC for the second time at IEM Cologne 2025 — this time in a do-or-die elimination match. The Swedish squad stays in the race, while HEROIC exit in the top 16. The star of the series was Portuguese player ewjerkz with an impressive performance.
Tournament Journey
NiP started their IEM Cologne 2025 campaign with confident victories in the Play-In stage, beating HEROIC (2:1) and 3DMAX (2:0). However, in the main stage, the level of opponents and the stakes were much higher — where every lost round can cost dearly. There, NiP opened with a painful 0:2 loss to Aurora. On Train, they managed to push the map to overtime and had a chance to force a third decider, but failed to handle the pressure from the Turkish squad.
HEROIC also began in the Play-In, losing their first match to NiP. They bounced back with wins over MIBR and Virtus.pro. In the main stage, they were drawn against Spirit — a top-4 HLTV team — whose star rifler donk makes them a formidable opponent.
Survival Battle
On Train, NiP started strong with four consecutive rounds and took the first half convincingly at 9:3. In the second half, they held their momentum and closed the map 13:4.
On their map pick Nuke, NiP again came out firing with six straight rounds. Despite HEROIC bringing the half back to a manageable 5:7 scoreline, they struggled in the second half as T-side and could only secure one round. Final score: 13:6 in favor of NiP.
Player of the Match
The best player of the series was Michel “ewjerkz” Magalhães from Portugal, who finished the two-map series with the highest kill count (38), an ADR of 96.6, and a rating of 1.69.
NiP eliminate HEROIC
HEROIC exit IEM Cologne 2025 in 13th–16th place and take home $10,000 in prize money, failing to get revenge on NiP. Meanwhile, NiP continue their tournament run and will face the winner of MOUZ vs NAVI tomorrow.
