Apeks crush NA dreams in Paris
After dodging the likes of Heroic, FaZe, and Vitality in their opening Champions Stage series at the BLAST.tv Paris Major, hopes were running incredibly high that Liquid, and by extension NA, would be able to find a top-four finish in the final CS:GO Major with ease.
Unfortunately, hope can only take teams so far, and as Apeks faced down Liquid on Ancient and Overpass, it was evident the strategy and the will wasn't there for the Americans. Despite the odds and history being against them, Apeks proved themselves in the series with a confident and clinical 2-0 victory to continue their open Cinderella story in the city of lights.
Beginning the series on Apeks' pick of Ancient, it was clear the European mix came into the series without an ounce of overconfidence following their win over Liquid in the Challengers Stage. Damjan "kyxsan" Stoilkovski and Jakub "kuben" Gurczynski had clearly been hard at work in the lab for such a rematch as Apeks mounted an incredibly clean opening 11-4 T-side that was paved by a massive performance Martin "STYKO" Styk which saw the veteran post a 16-9 K-D and 123.9 ADR.
After switching sides, Apeks' clean and composed plan for Ancient continued to be evident depsite Liquid's best efforts to get back into the series. Despite some individual heroics from Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski, Apeks' utility usage, anti-stratting, and pace setting aggression on their CT-side allowed Apeks to come out on top with a 16-10 win to start the series.
Moving onto Overpass, despite winning the opening pistol round, Liquid continued to look shaky in the fight for a third map as now kyxsan had his chance to bee Apeks' hero. Thanks to a strong performance from him and Tim "nawwk" Jonasson, the Europeans masterminded a dominant CT-side, allowing them to yet another 11-4 half.
In the second half of Overpass, Liquid finally began to show signs of life as Liquid's star trio began to come alive, with Josh "oSee" Ohm leading the charge as Liquid won their third pistol round of the series and seven out the next nine rounds to find double digits. Unfortunately for Liquid, just as things started to come together, a massive 1v3 by nawwk secured Apeks a fourteenth round which via some more heroics allowed Apeks to calim their fifteenth and then take the series 2-0.
LiquidApeks| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis |
41 - 39 | +2 | 83.1 | 71.7% | 1.19 |
 Keith 'NAF' Markovic |
35 - 36 | -1 | 75.3 | 75.5% | 1.05 |
 Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski |
32 - 36 | -4 | 68.2 | 73.6% | 1.00 |
| Nick 'nitr0' Cannella |
27 - 38 | -11 | 63.7 | 71.7% | 0.86 |
| Josh 'oSee' Ohm |
31 - 33 | -2 | 53.7 | 71.7% | 0.84 |
| Apeks |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Damjan 'kyxsan' Stoilkovski |
49 - 34 | +15 | 88.4 | 81.1% | 1.34 |
 Tim 'nawwk' Jonasson |
39 - 24 | +15 | 67.8 | 81.1% | 1.30 |
 Martin 'STYKO' Styk |
37 - 36 | +1 | 88.3 | 67.9% | 1.02 |
 Joakim 'jkaem' Myrbostad |
33 - 36 | -3 | 68.6 | 67.9% | 1.01 |
 Justinas 'jL' Lekavicius |
23 - 37 | -14 | 57.7 | 75.5% | 0.87 |
