Liquid vs MOUZ Pre-Match Preview
In a little bit less than an hour, the #1 NA team will enter the server to face off against the #5 team in the world, MOUZ. The European team finished first in their group and skipped the first round of playoffs. During the group stage, MOUZ only dropped one game and it was against Astralis. For the Liquid side, the team is coming to this round after a huge series against Fnatic that both teams can be proud of.
Just like in the series against Fnatic, don't expect to see either Nuke or Dust2 being played between these two teams. Mirage is a usual pick for both teams, so the map will definitely be played today. Another map that falls in the same category is Inferno. Fun fact; Liquid and MOUZ have the same win rate on Inferno during the last month, with both teams winning 66.7% of the games they play there, despite Liquid having played the map six times and MOUZ only three. The second round of bans will probably see Ancient being removed by the European org, and Vertigo banned by the best NA team in the world right now, leaving Overpass as the decider.
The key factor for Liquid is, once again, Mareks "YEKINDAR" Gaļinskis, as the Latvian plays an important role for the team, but don't discard the likes of Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski and Josh "oSee" Ohm, as both of them were also the solution for the win over Fnatic.
For MOUZ, David "frozen" Čerňanský is their best player at the moment, bringing a lot of impact in almost every round. What can decide if this series goes MOUZ's way is the consistency of the team's young players, who sometimes can be found at the bottom of the fragging list, alongside their IGL Christopher "dexter" Nong. Regardless of his firepower, dexter has been proving to be able to control the game through brain power instead.
This is set to be a good quarter-final, but wouldn't be surprising if either team takes the series 2-0, due to both feeling comfortable in each other's pick of Inferno and Mirage. If things reach the probable Overpass decider, expect to see a series fought to the very end and some of the best Counter-Strike you have seen lately.
