Liquid narrowly avoid exit at Paris versus Fluxo
In what almost went down as NA's worst performance at a CS:GO Major, Liquid narrowly avoided elimination at the BLAST.tv Paris Major in the Challengers Stage following a 2-1 win over Fluxo — a team ~71% of fans chose to go 0-3 in the pick'ems.
Starting the series off on Nuke, Fluxo's best map, despite Fluxo not necessarily showing anything in the tournament up until this point, the Brazilians managed to keep Liquid on their toes after finding their first round in round three. After getting on the board, thanks in large part to a leading performance from Allan "history" Lawrenz, Fluxo disrupted Liquid's game plan heavily, only allowing Liquid to finish their CT-side up with a narrow 8-7 lead.
After switching sides, despite Liquid starting the half in the driver's seat by winning their T-side pistol and the following two rounds, the Americans completely capitulated as Fluxo stacked bodies and rounds, not conceding a single on their way to shock-inducing 16-11 loss for Liquid. For context, the win marked Fluxo's second map win this year over a non-Brazilian team since yur in the RMR and only their fourth map in organization history.
Moving into map two, Inferno, Liquid won their third pistol round of the series but were unable to do much with it as a series blunders, unorthodox plays, and strong play from the Brazilians allowed Fluxo to climb up to a 5-1 scoreline. After this point, Liquid would finally be able to answer back, winning six out of the next eight rounds, but would ultimately be Vinicius "vsm" Moreira and co. powering forward to another razor's edge 8-7 half.
A large part of Liquid's failure to gain ground in this series, and this tournament overall, has been a series of underwhelming performances by Mareks "YEKINDAR" Gaļinskis and Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski, with neither really finding their rhythm despite glowing confidence before Paris proper.
This mental block for the duo finally seems to have, in some sense, been broken through as Liquid continued to be dominant in pistol rounds before quickly finding 15 rounds while Fluxo struggled to find an answer. After a scary moment where Fluxo won four rounds and almost found overtime, Liquid finally won a map, albeit 16-14, and forced the series on Ancient.
The deciding map started off looking like another scare for Liquid, with a 3-0 lead by Lucaozy and co. on Fluxo. Fortunately, a step-up from YEKINDAR saw a revival of Liquid's CT-side. Leading the recovery, the Latvian star brought the scoreline to a tied 5-5. With the remaining rounds in the half being only five, each would be crucial for both teams.
Fortunately for the American side Liquid, they were able to squeeze out four of the five rounds remaining the half and secure themselves a 9-6 lead. Opening the second half, Fluxo were able to with two CT-side round defusal wins, however, Liquid's money was building up. Continuing their goal for a map win, Liquid overloaded Fluxo with another four rounds, taking the scoreline to 13-8.
An attempt at resetting Liquid was made by Flux with a 9th round for their tally, but a triple-kill by YEKINDAR on the following round saw them move up to 14-9. Giving up another round to a strong vsm opener on the B-site saw Fluxo reach double digits. Both teams now trading rounds back-and-forth saw Liquid creeping slowly towards 16 rounds and the win.
Finally getting a second and third round in a row, Fluxo were up to 13 rounds to Liquid's 15. Unfortunately for the Brazilian side, they would be heading home as a final full-buy by Liquid saw them demolish Fluxo on the A-site.
FluxoLiquid| Fluxo |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Vinicius 'vsm' Moreira |
64 - 50 | +14 | 84.5 | 77.9% | 1.24 |
| Lucas 'Lucaozy' Neves |
65 - 58 | +7 | 77.3 | 69.8% | 1.12 |
| Allan 'history' Lawrenz |
59 - 55 | +4 | 72.0 | 67.4% | 1.05 |
| João 'felps' Vasconcellos |
41 - 59 | -18 | 56.6 | 55.8% | 0.74 |
| Adriano 'WOOD7' Cerato |
34 - 56 | -22 | 48.9 | 61.6% | 0.71 |
| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Keith 'NAF' Markovic |
59 - 45 | +14 | 72.4 | 77.9% | 1.20 |
 Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis |
65 - 54 | +11 | 81.5 | 65.1% | 1.15 |
 Josh 'oSee' Ohm |
56 - 53 | +3 | 72.2 | 73.3% | 1.06 |
| Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski |
52 - 59 | -7 | 70.5 | 67.4% | 0.96 |
| Nick 'nitr0' Cannella |
44 - 57 | -13 | 61.7 | 70.9% | 0.87 |
Liquid are now set to be facing Complexity tomorrow in a 1-2 elimination match.
