Liquid fall to Astralis again; what went wrong?
In a replay of the BLAST Premier Fall Groups, Liquid were sent down to the IEM Cologne 2023 Play-in lower bracket following another loss to their Danish demons in Astralis. While one can be forgiven for assuming the worst in one of Liquid's most difficult encounters over the years, it's still worth asking, what went wrong?
Are you sure about Ancient?
In the best of one, it definitely felt like Astralis won the veto as the Danes were able to pull Liquid onto Ancient, one of their better maps of late. While Liquid was clearly trying to avoid Vertigo and Nuke, being unwilling to float the latter map, which Astralis has a 25% win rate on, seems like a missed opportunity. Letting Astralis play on Ancient seemed to play out in their favor as the Danes had a strong game plan on their CT-side.
Rainwaker's struggles
Much like Liquid's previous bout against Astralis, there was a critical underperformance from a key piece of the team, however this time it was Aleks "Rainwaker" Petrov. The Bulgarian youngster was the only player on the server to not find double-digit kills while his ADR and KAST were also lacking.
Playing from behind again
Unfortunately once again, Liquid began their match against Astralis in a deep deficit as the Danes went 9-1 at the beginning of their CT side. In a best-of-one, falling this far behind early is rarely a recipe for success.
AstralisLiquid| Astralis |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Christian 'Buzz' Andersen |
23 - 20 | +3 | 108.2 | 84.6% | 1.40 |
| Nicolai 'device' Reedtz |
19 - 12 | +7 | 80.7 | 73.1% | 1.35 |
| Benjamin 'blameF' Bremer |
21 - 18 | +3 | 80.4 | 69.2% | 1.23 |
| Johannes 'b0RUP' Borup |
20 - 17 | +3 | 70.6 | 69.2% | 1.07 |
| Victor 'Staehr' Staehr |
13 - 17 | -4 | 59.7 | 73.1% | 0.85 |
| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Keith 'NAF' Markovic |
26 - 20 | +6 | 114.5 | 73.1% | 1.41 |
 Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis |
16 - 19 | -3 | 67.7 | 73.1% | 0.98 |
 Josh 'oSee' Ohm |
14 - 19 | -5 | 68.5 | 69.2% | 0.85 |
 Robert 'Patsi' Isyanov |
17 - 19 | -2 | 65.0 | 65.4% | 0.84 |
 Aleks 'Rainwaker' Petrov |
9 - 20 | -11 | 45.0 | 65.4% | 0.70 |
What's next for Liquid?
Liquid will look to stay alive as they face down BIG today at 10:00AM.
