Liquid fall short in IEM Cologne opener
Liquid's debut at IEM Cologne has gotten off to a less than ideal start after being taken down by PGL Antwerp Major semifinalists, Spirit, in a three-map affair. This result sees the North Americans now set to take on the loser of FaZe vs 00 Nation on Saturday at 06:30AM.
The BO3 began on Spirit's pick of Dust2 with the CIS side coming out ahead in the opening skirmish to post a razor-thin 5-4 lead. Despite this, Nick "nitr0" Canella and Mareks "YEKINDAR" Gaļinskis soon put their foot down, joining forces as they helped Liquid go on to post an impregnable CT-side defense which saw the North Americans head into the break with a commanding 11-4 lead.
After switching sides, Spirit slowly began to eat away at the deficit, finding the first four rounds with relative ease with zonic's law seemingly set to come into play. However, Liquid soon stabilized, adding five rounds on the bounce to snatch away Dust2 16-8 and put any chance at a Russian comeback firmly to bed.
The two teams then paid a visit to Overpass where things quickly began crumbling for nitr0's men, seeing Spirit drum up an overpowering 7-1 CT-side lead to start the map. Thankfully for Liquid, the squad did manage to brush off this opening deficit by clinching a handful of rounds of their own, eventually seeing the squad trail by just three rounds at the switch.
Spirit doubled down once on their T-side, adding five of the first seven rounds to further extend their lead over the North Americans. With the wind in their sails, Spirit then wasted little time in finding the few remaining rounds they needed to steal Overpass 16-9 and tie the series.
Heading to Ancient for the deciding map, Spirit quickly took advantage of the CT-sided nature of the map by accruing an opening 8-2 advantage. With the map seemingly slipping away from them, Liquid decided to pull their socks up and added three of the final five rounds of the half to prevent Spirit from running away with things.
Moving onto the defense, Liquid really came alive, overturning a Spirit pistol-round victory with eight of their own to lead for the first time in the map. While Liquid were in a prime position to steal away Ancient, Spirit soon caught up themselves, forcing the two sides to pay a trip to overtime to determine a winner.
There, two overtimes would be required before Spirit managed to find the fire in their bellies to get the ball over the line and take Ancient 22-20 to send the North American squad down to the lower-bracket.
LiquidSpirit| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Nick 'nitr0' Cannella |
68 - 65 | +3 | 78.0 | 67.0% | 1.11 |
| Josh 'oSee' Ohm |
65 - 56 | +9 | 67.2 | 72.5% | 1.10 |
| Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski |
60 - 66 | -6 | 78.9 | 68.1% | 1.00 |
 Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis |
55 - 60 | -5 | 73.4 | 62.6% | 0.96 |
 Keith 'NAF' Markovic |
58 - 63 | -5 | 71.4 | 70.3% | 0.96 |
| Spirit |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Robert 'Patsi' Isyanov |
80 - 74 | +6 | 96.6 | 65.9% | 1.22 |
 Ihor 'w0nderful' Zhdanov |
64 - 53 | +11 | 69.7 | 71.4% | 1.12 |
| Pavel 's1ren' Ogloblin |
57 - 60 | -3 | 68.5 | 72.5% | 1.00 |
| Leonid 'chopper' Vishnyakov |
57 - 59 | -2 | 70.0 | 70.3% | 0.96 |
| Boris 'magixx' Vorobiev |
51 - 62 | -11 | 68.8 | 64.8% | 0.91 |
With their defeat to Spirit, Liquid will now be preparing for their lower-bracket matchup versus the loser of FaZe vs 00 Nation, scheduled for Saturday at 06:30AM.
