Liquid playoffs opponent decided at Paris Major
With the conclusion of the long-drawn Apeks vs Ninjas in Pyjamas, our sole North American representatives have now been set their opponents for the quarterfinals of the BLAST.tv Paris Major — the last ever CS:GO Major Championship. Facing Liquid in the last quarterfinal of the playoffs will be Apeks, who just eliminated NIP from the tournament.
With this being first time an NA team has made it the the playoffs of a Major since 2019, it will be ever crucial for Liquid to show that NA is back and ready to take heads. Placing well will also be important for the team's qualification to other tournaments. The winning team will receive automatic invites to both the BLAST Premier World Final and the shortly upcoming IEM Cologne, with ESL World Ranking points also playing an important role even if Liquid do not win.
Facing Apeks will give Liquid an opportunity for revenge after their opening BO1 in the Challengers Stage where they lost 12-16 to the mixed-European squad on Ancient. Despite making it out of the Challengers Stage 3-1 and now the Legends Stage 3-2, Apeks have not actually defeated any big-name teams except NIP, who have shown some struggles of their own.
On the other hand, Liquid seem to have turned everything around after a near-miss with Fluxo, almost being eliminated by the worst-performing team at the Major. Taking down Complexity and Grayhound 2-0 to qualify to the Legends Stage, and now defeating 9INE, Natus Vincere, and Into The Breach to make the Champions Stage. To add on top of that, a very close nail-biting 1-2 loss to Heroic saw Liquid almost go 3-0 in the Swiss system.
Should Liquid defeat Apeks, which we are all rooting for, they will be facing the winner of Vitality versus Into The Breach. Although Vitality are by far the expected favorites for that match, going 3-0 in the Swiss system, an ITB win would see a rematch akin to The War of 1812.
The other side of the bracket will see a semifinal between the winners of Heroic versus FaZe Clan and GamerLegion versus Monte. Should Liquid reach the grand final, they will be facing one of those four teams, with Heroic being the favorites for that side of the bracket. That would setup another rematch, but this time of the 2-0 Swiss match that we mentioned earlier.
Liquid's BO3 quaterfinal match versus Apeks is scheduled for May 19th at 01:00PM, as the last of the four quaterfinals. Make sure you don't miss it as we'll all be cheering for the boys!
