Liquid shut down G2 at BLAST Fall Finals
Liquid kicked off the series against G2 with an odd choice. Despite the international lineup choosing Vertigo as their map pick, the North Americans opted to start on the T-side when given the option. G2 took their CT pistol round and claimed the follow-ups to give themselves an early 3-0 lead. Liquid's offensive looked solid in the early stages, claiming eight unanswered rounds, with a Mareks "YEKINDAR" Gaļinskis 3k entry on A site being the most memorable highlight. Liquid clearly looked prepared for the gameplan of the European side, finding entries across the map, forcing rotations, and exploiting the spaces afforded to them. G2 eventually found an answer in round 12, holding down the fort to find their fourth. Rasmus "HooXi" Nielsen and co. claimed a second straight round, forcing Liquid to call a timeout to rethink their strategy. This readjusted strategy worked well as Liquid found another round before G2 closed the half to make it 9-6 to the North Americans.
Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski opened the second half with a pistol round ace on the A ramp before Liquid quickly cleaned up the following three rounds comfortably. The EU org began their crawl back into the game with several rounds in a row to make it 13-9 to Liquid, with YEKINDAR cheekily attempting a ninja defuse in round 20 which caused some minor panic. Nick "nitr0" Cannella's 2k on the B site secured the fourteenth for Liquid, with a swift shutout on the A site giving the NA boys match point. EliGE posted his thirtieth and thirty-first frags in round 26 to secure the map for Liquid and send them to their pick of Mirage.
Kicking off on the CT-side yet again, G2 opened with a pistol round victory before Liquid quickly bounced back with a force buy that forced the Europeans into a save. In a similar fashion to Vertigo, Liquid looked prepared for G2, moving out to a 5-2 lead. The EU squad would find their feet a bit quicker than they did on Vertigo, as Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov put on a clinic in connector to collect three kills. G2's solid run after their shaky straight going on a six-round run before a B execute from the NA team halted the run making it 8-6. NiKo's flank into A ramp secured the final round of the half to make to a 9-6 half.
Chaos ensued in the second half pistol round with a flurry of frags in middle before G2 concluded the round on the B site and securing the round. Liquid failed to capitalise on an execute into their A stack forcing them to eco in the next and giving G2 a 12-6 lead. Keith "NAF" Markovic and YEKINDAR combined for a 2v3 retake on the A site, with NAF denying a NiKo 1v2 clutch attempt to make it 12-9. YEKINDAR decided "I have had enough of this" before deleting three members of the opposition and winning the round, with the Latvian doing the same thing and wiped out four G2 players in mid. He did it again the next round with another 3k.
The YEKINDAR freight train was halted after the two sides became tied at 12-12, with G2 inching closer to map 3 as they made it 14-12 and forced Josh "oSee" Ohm to save his AWP. Playing retake on the A site worked out for Liquid as they successfully found their thirteenth in a tight retake. Hooxi's failure to kill the defuser in his round-the-world play tied the game up once again at 14-14. Liquid were the first to match point despite NiKo's best efforts to claw back a 3v5 deficit, however it was not to be for the Europeans, with Liquid closing out the series 16-14.
Liquid's next outing will come against Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev's NAVI side tomorrow at 01:00PM.
LiquidG2| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski |
45 - 34 | +11 | 96.4 | 75.0% | 1.33 |
 Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis |
48 - 38 | +10 | 84.2 | 64.3% | 1.27 |
 Keith 'NAF' Markovic |
40 - 28 | +12 | 70.0 | 75.0% | 1.14 |
| Josh 'oSee' Ohm |
26 - 29 | -3 | 51.4 | 71.4% | 0.94 |
| Nick 'nitr0' Cannella |
31 - 37 | -6 | 63.1 | 64.3% | 0.90 |
| G2 |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Nikola 'NiKo' Kovač |
35 - 40 | -5 | 83.7 | 64.3% | 1.02 |
 Ilya 'm0NESY' Osipov |
36 - 36 | +0 | 65.5 | 67.9% | 0.98 |
 Rasmus 'HooXi' Nielsen |
34 - 37 | -3 | 70.4 | 66.1% | 0.86 |
| Nemanja 'huNter-' Kovač |
32 - 40 | -8 | 63.2 | 69.6% | 0.86 |
 Justin 'jks' Savage |
29 - 37 | -8 | 54.7 | 67.9% | 0.81 |
