M80 conquer Liquid to earn IEM Chengdu invite

M80 secured a crucial 2-1 victory over Liquid to win the IEM Chengdu North American Closed Qualifier, and with it, a spot at the Chinese event beginning later this spring.

Liquid's loss against M80 comes at a time when the new international squad begins preparing for their first LAN appearance at BLAST Premier Spring Groups.

M80 will join Complexity and fourteen other teams as they all compete for their cut of the $250,000 prizepool.

Also read: artStar reunites with EMUHLEET and rain on Karma

The three-map affair was a rematch of the earlier meeting between the two squads at the 2024 PGL Copenhagen Americans RMR North American Closed Qualifier where Michael Swisher" Schmid's team trounced the international squad 13-3.

The back-and-forth match saw the two sides head into double-overtime on the first map with M80 squeezing out a 19-17 victory on Liquid's pick of Inferno. Liquid quickly got revenge as they dominated M80, 13-2, on their opponent's pick of Nuke. With the final map coming down to Ancient, M80 were able to confidently close the grand final out with a 13-8 map victory to take the series 2-1.

Mario "malbsMd" Samayoa was the best performer of the Closed Qualifier as the Guatemalan rifler posted a 1.37 HLTV Rating, a 1.55 Impact Rating, and a 93.3 ADR across eleven maps and was also the highest performer in the grand final against Liquid.

IEM Chengdu 2024 North America Closed Qualifier

Bo3

Liquid

1 - 2

M80

All maps

Liquid	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating 2.1
Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken	58 - 45	+13	74.9	75.3%	1.23
Keith 'NAF' Markovic	59 - 45	+14	85.4	75.3%	1.19
Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis	52 - 57	-5	75.5	71.2%	1.07
Felipe 'skullz' Medeiros	39 - 50	-11	58.9	76.7%	0.88
Casper 'cadiaN' Møller	36 - 48	-12	62.7	79.5%	0.86

M80	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating 2.1
Mario 'malbsMd' Samayoa	68 - 53	+15	102.2	72.6%	1.33
Michael 'Swisher' Schmid	53 - 47	+6	79.6	75.3%	1.13
Ethan 'reck' Serrano	41 - 48	-7	55.9	74.0%	0.93
Marcus 'maNkz' Kjeldsen	42 - 55	-13	67.0	71.2%	0.86
Fritz 'slaxz-' Dietrich	40 - 44	-4	57.5	75.3%	0.83