Liquid look to party after defeating Astralis at iBUYPOWER Masters 2019
Liquid have finally claimed a series victory over Astralis in the grand finals of iBUYPOWER Masters 2019 to take home the lion's share of the $200,000 prize pool, picking up a 2-1 series victory (4-16 Inferno, 16-11 Dust2, 16-11 Overpass).
The second day of matches, originally slated to be just the two semifinals and grand final, began with the Group B elimination match between Luminosity and FaZe, with the Group A and B decider matches playing out shortly afterward.
Ladislav "GuardiaN" Kovács helped FaZe make short work of Luminosity on Overpass, with the European side initially taking an 8-7 lead on the T side before granting the Brazilians only a single round after halftime for a 16-8 victory. Meanwhile, Cloud9 were eliminated from the competition in the Group A decider by fnatic, managing to battle back from a 9-13 deficit on Mirage only for fnatic to take a final trio of rounds for a 14-16 scoreline.
Cloud9fnatic| Cloud9 |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Robin 'flusha' Rönnquist |
23 - 22 | +1 | 89.6 | 76.7% | 1.13 |
 William 'RUSH' Wierzba |
20 - 20 | +0 | 76.8 | 66.7% | 1.06 |
 Fabien 'kioShiMa' Fiey |
22 - 23 | -1 | 80.5 | 73.3% | 0.99 |
| Timothy 'autimatic' Ta |
19 - 21 | -2 | 66.5 | 70.0% | 0.98 |
| Jordan 'Zellsis' Montemurro |
13 - 22 | -9 | 55.2 | 50.0% | 0.66 |
| fnatic |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Freddy 'KRIMZ' Johansson |
22 - 20 | +2 | 88.0 | 80.0% | 1.33 |
| Richard 'Xizt' Landström |
24 - 16 | +8 | 89.9 | 76.7% | 1.31 |
| Jesper 'JW' Wecksell |
22 - 19 | +3 | 80.2 | 76.7% | 1.14 |
| Ludvig 'Brollan' Brolin |
23 - 21 | +2 | 77.3 | 73.3% | 1.10 |
| Simon 'twist' Eliasson |
16 - 22 | -6 | 56.0 | 60.0% | 0.80 |
Robin "flusha" Ronnquist was quick to take to Twitter to express his discontent at the tournament conditions over the weekend:
FaZe were unable to keep up their good form in their own decider match, where they faced off against Joshua "steel" Nissan's Ghost on Train. There, Ghost were able to put up a stellar T side, racking up eleven rounds to keep FaZe on the backfoot. Although FaZe battled back with five rounds straight off of a pistol round victory, Ghost continued to fight back to eventually close out the map 16-13, netting themselves a spot in the semifinals.
GhostFaZe| Ghost |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Joshua 'steel' Nissan |
25 - 19 | +6 | 100.3 | 72.4% | 1.35 |
| Kenneth 'koosta' Suen |
20 - 17 | +3 | 65.2 | 65.5% | 1.09 |
| Matthew 'WARDELL' Yu |
17 - 16 | +1 | 69.5 | 65.5% | 1.05 |
| Ryan 'freakazoid' Abadir |
18 - 17 | +1 | 59.8 | 65.5% | 0.99 |
| Jason 'neptune' Tran |
13 - 19 | -6 | 64.9 | 65.5% | 0.76 |
| FaZe |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Nikola 'NiKo' Kovač |
23 - 19 | +4 | 90.2 | 69.0% | 1.20 |
 Ladislav 'GuardiaN' Kovács |
18 - 17 | +1 | 65.5 | 75.9% | 1.14 |
| Olof 'olofmeister' Kajbjer |
17 - 16 | +1 | 55.7 | 62.1% | 0.94 |
 Håvard 'rain' Nygaard |
15 - 22 | -7 | 65.3 | 62.1% | 0.84 |
 Dauren 'AdreN' Kystaubayev |
15 - 20 | -5 | 67.7 | 58.6% | 0.78 |
Meanwhile on the event's stream, Liquid sent fnatic packing in the first semifinal matchup. A fast 16-6 win on Cache for Liquid gave way to a tense back-and-forth on Mirage, with fnatic edging out a 19-17 victory in overtime to take the series to Dust2. Once again Liquid took firm control of the series, dismantling fnatic's defense for an 11-4 half before closing out the the map 16-9.
Astralis had little difficulty in their first map against Ghost, locking out steel and co.'s attempts to gain entry into bombsites for a 13-2 half. A quick trio of rounds sealed the deal for Astralis on the first map, taking the series to Inferno. There, a number of economic resets against the Danes in the first half allowed for Ghost to rack up a double-digit lead of their own, mustering a 10-5 CT side half against Astralis.
Once they swapped over to their own CT side, Astralis were quick to even the score, with Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander and Andreas "Xyp9x" Højsleth combining to take six rounds straight. With the lead out of their hands, Ghost attempted to fight back, but Astralis kept it just out of reach with another set of rounds. Ghost finally managed to reclaim the lead to sit just one round shy of match point at 14-13, but the Danes secured the final trio of rounds to take the map 16-14 and the series 2-0.
AstralisGhost| Astralis |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Andreas 'Xyp9x' Højsleth |
42 - 22 | +20 | 89.3 | 77.1% | 1.42 |
| Lukas 'gla1ve' Rossander |
42 - 28 | +14 | 92.6 | 72.9% | 1.38 |
| Nicolai 'device' Reedtz |
42 - 25 | +17 | 77.6 | 79.2% | 1.35 |
| Emil 'Magisk' Reif |
35 - 33 | +2 | 100.8 | 85.4% | 1.25 |
| Peter 'dupreeh' Rasmussen |
27 - 28 | -1 | 51.5 | 70.8% | 0.90 |
| Ghost |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Matthew 'WARDELL' Yu |
32 - 37 | -5 | 67.5 | 58.3% | 0.95 |
| Jason 'neptune' Tran |
29 - 37 | -8 | 63.8 | 66.7% | 0.94 |
| Kenneth 'koosta' Suen |
30 - 38 | -8 | 66.5 | 56.2% | 0.77 |
| Ryan 'freakazoid' Abadir |
24 - 36 | -12 | 58.8 | 66.7% | 0.77 |
| Joshua 'steel' Nissan |
21 - 40 | -19 | 60.1 | 52.1% | 0.71 |
The grand final began with Liquid looking out-of-sorts, with Astralis keeping Keith "NAF" Markovic's side firmly away from the lead on Inferno. An initial 6-0 lead for the Danes allowed for them to further extend their first half scoreline to 12-3 on their CT side, eventually closing out the map 16-4 and taking the series to their own pick of Dust2.
Liquid got off to a better start on Dust2, nabbing themselves the first pistol round on their T side. Unfortunately, they immediately fell to Astralis' pistol buy in the ensuing round, leading to gla1ve and co. working their way up to a 5-1 lead. Jake "Stewie2K" Yip helped Liquid break the streak, guiding his team to an eight-round spree as they battled back for the lead. Astralis kept themselves competitive with the final round of the half, granting Liquid a 9-6 lead as the sides swapped over.
Liquid left little room for Astralis to fight back at the start of the half, immediately securing six rounds straight to settle themselves on match point. Astralis weren't ready to be shutdown quite yet as they put up five rounds of their own, but Liquid used their lead and saved weapons to their advantage to take the series to a third map with a 16-11 victory.
Astralis seemed back in form as the Danes opened up Overpass with a seven-round spree, with Liquid finally managing to get themselves on the board for a 7-2 scoreline. Astralis managed another two rounds before Liquid once again battled back for one of their own, but this time the North American side seized control of the proceedings from Astralis as they put a halt to the Danish spree, grabbing themselves eleven rounds straight with a second half pistol win to take the lead from Astralis at 12-9.
A buy from Astralis finally cracked open the Liquid defense, but the Danes immediately found themselves reset as Liquid cruised to match point with stellar site defenses. A small glimmer of hope glinted as Astralis somehow won a round with pistols against a fully-kitted Liquid lineup, but the comeback wasn't on the cards as Liquid replied back to net themselves one final round for a 16-11 map win.
LiquidAstralis| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keith 'NAF' Markovic |
58 - 44 | +14 | 79.1 | 85.1% | 1.23 |
| Jake 'Stewie2K' Yip |
53 - 50 | +3 | 85.7 | 70.3% | 1.17 |
| Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken |
50 - 50 | +0 | 72.0 | 70.3% | 1.07 |
| Nick 'nitr0' Cannella |
47 - 48 | -1 | 70.2 | 70.3% | 0.99 |
| Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski |
43 - 54 | -11 | 65.6 | 67.6% | 0.92 |
| Astralis |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Andreas 'Xyp9x' Højsleth |
61 - 50 | +11 | 96.0 | 73.0% | 1.26 |
| Lukas 'gla1ve' Rossander |
54 - 50 | +4 | 73.2 | 64.9% | 1.08 |
| Emil 'Magisk' Reif |
42 - 44 | -2 | 77.5 | 77.0% | 1.06 |
| Nicolai 'device' Reedtz |
48 - 57 | -9 | 72.9 | 71.6% | 0.95 |
| Peter 'dupreeh' Rasmussen |
38 - 50 | -12 | 51.8 | 60.8% | 0.77 |
With this win, Liquid have claimed their first series victory over Astralis since ESL One New York 2017, and their first ever series win against the Emil "Magisk" Reif iteration of the Danish lineup.
The final standings for iBUYPOWER Masters 2019 are as follows:
1. Liquid - $100,000
2. Astralis - $40,000
3-4. fnatic - $17,000
3-4. Ghost - $17,000
5-6. Cloud9 - $8,000
5-6. 
FaZe - $8,000
7-8. 
compLexity - $5,000
7-8. 
Luminosity - $5,000
Liquid are next slated to play in the IEM Katowice New Legends stage, set to kick off on February 20th. Before that can play out, the IEM Katowice Americas Minor will take place, with the first matchup between Bravado and INTZ beginning on January 22nd at 10:05 AM EST. Cloud9, compLexity, and FaZe will also all return to Atlanta and head down to the ELEAGUE studios for their four-team invitational from January 25-27.
