Liquid conquer G2 on debut
Liquid were at the center of the off-season shuffle, with legendary IGL Nick "nitr0" Canella retiring and their decision to part ways with long-term servant Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski leaving them with two spaces to fill. In came Spirit star Robert "Patsi" Isyanov and Bulgarian Aleks "Rainwaker" Petrov with Mareks "YEKINDAR" Gaļinskis permanently taking over the leading duties. The new look Liquid's first test would be G2 who, despite winning IEM Katowice early in the year, had a poor showing at the BLAST Paris Major but had resisted making any changes in the off-season.
The first map would be Liquid's pick of Ancient with the team starting on the T side they managed to post eight rounds on the traditionally harder side of the map. This was thanks in large part due to the old core of YEKINDAR, Josh "oSee" Ohm, and Keith "NAF" Markovic finding their kills whilst the new additions seemed to not be settled.
However, in the second half, it would be a completely different story as Patsi and Rainwaker came alive, with Patsi showing his trademark aggression to post a 1.93 rating in the CT half and Rainwaker backing up his new teammate with a 1.44 rating on the CT side. That helped the team take full control of the map as they dropped just two rounds in the second half to post a 16-9 score.
Map two would be Mirage and it would start how Ancient finished with Liquid firmly on top, this time starting on the CT side Liquid ran off to a 8-2 lead before G2 would find their way through the defense to bring it all the way back to a tied game at 10-10. After tieing the scores G2 closed out a close round against a Liquid force buy before oSee and Patsi managed to clutch up a 2v4 situation to bring the scores to 11-11.
The two sides began to trade rounds as G2 showed a lot more fight than they had on Ancient, with Rasmus "HooXi" Nielsen securing a Ninja defuse in an otherwise unwinnable round to once again tie up the scores 13-13. That gift of a round allowed G2 to take the lead on Mirage powered by Nikola "NiKo" Kovač's 30 kills, but a change of pace from Liquid once again tied up an incredibly close map. Fittingly the map would be taken to overtime after some heroics from Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov with the AWP, and G2 would close out the series in overtime 19-17.
Also read: Twistzz on roster moves: "You don't always have to go and search for the new shiny thing"The final map would be Vertigo, a battleground Liquid haven't visited since the BLAST Premier Fall Final where they lost to HEROIC 16-9. However, the Vertigo experiment got off to a torrid start as they failed to break through the G2 defense managing just one out of the first eight rounds. Liquid recovered to bring the deficit back to just one round at the half, but after failing to convert the second round of the half they fell behind again to a 13-8 score.
YEKINDAR clutched up a big 1v2 to once again put Liquid just one round behind G2. After winning five rounds in a row Liquid would make no mistake in closing out match point this time as a 16-14 score secured the win and a spot against FaZe in the next round.
G2Liquid| G2 |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Nikola 'NiKo' Kovač |
77 - 65 | +12 | 93.1 | 70.3% | 1.27 |
 Justin 'jks' Savage |
61 - 58 | +3 | 77.4 | 70.3% | 1.02 |
 Ilya 'm0NESY' Osipov |
65 - 65 | +0 | 71.7 | 65.9% | 0.98 |
| Nemanja 'huNter-' Kovač |
48 - 65 | -17 | 63.5 | 64.8% | 0.85 |
 Rasmus 'HooXi' Nielsen |
38 - 63 | -25 | 46.0 | 60.4% | 0.64 |
| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Keith 'NAF' Markovic |
70 - 54 | +16 | 75.2 | 79.1% | 1.20 |
 Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis |
67 - 57 | +10 | 79.4 | 68.1% | 1.14 |
| Robert 'Patsi' Isyanov |
65 - 64 | +1 | 81.3 | 68.1% | 1.12 |
 Josh 'oSee' Ohm |
59 - 52 | +7 | 67.3 | 72.5% | 1.07 |
 Aleks 'Rainwaker' Petrov |
55 - 63 | -8 | 75.3 | 72.5% | 1.04 |
