Lightning strikes twice: paiN bests Liquid again

paiN proved that matchups make games after once defeating a Liquid team that should be in another tier on paper. When it came to action, paiN showed once again they are not to be overlooked.

Momentum, the Achilles heel

There is perhaps no greater foe to Liquid than momentum, and there is perhaps no other top-level team that crumbles to pressure more commonly and in more dramatic ways than Liquid. Once again, Liquid fans were forced to face the paiN they've experienced one too many times, opening their wounds once more to another unavoidable choke. Liquid's soft mental fabric was cut up by paiN's streaky ways, succumbing to paiN in maps one and three after CT-side win streaks that Liquid couldn't overcome.

The dreaded Nuke

Unfortunately for Nick "nitr0" Cannella and co., their Nuke that they had been practicing so hard and even picked versus Nouns on Thursday turned out to be one of their downfalls in the series. It was the pick of paiN, as we predicted would happen, so it's not as bad as it sounds but a 16-14 loss on the map meant that the American side were left clawing for a third map win on Mirage to take the series.

We expected Liquid to actually pick Mirage but their choice of Anubis might be saying more than we expected, as they decided they'd rather be playing on Anubis. Regardless, the series did eventually go to Mirage after Liquid were given it as choice alongside Ancient as the decider of the series. As Ancient is tried with Inferno as Liquid's lowest win-rate map and Mirage is second, it makes sense to pick Mirage but it also happened to be paiN's best map so it was not as a safe pick as Liquid could have hoped.

Getting big[uzera] on Goliath

The series was neck-and-neck throughout, with paiN able to edge out favorited foes at the end. As the eye test and statistics will prove, it was the in-game leader difference that served as the key catalyst for paiN's victory. Rodrigo "biguzera" Bittencourt was electric the whole series while calling for his team, proving his abilities in both fragging and tactical awareness in a tight game against higher-ranked opposition. He closed all three maps top-two on his team in performance and led the entire server in frags across the series all while handling the tactics and big green for his team.

What's next?

paiN had the opportunity to rest and spectate the matchup between EG Black and Imperial, giving them time to download their grand final opponent following the conclusion of that series. As for Liquid, a defeat to paiN means they're out of this BLAST tournament and are now looking for a successful five days of figuring themselves out with the Americas RMR right around the corner.