Liquid claimed a fantastic 2-0 debut win against Virtus.pro!
Liquid have achieved an unlikely for impressive victory over the top-ten Virtus.pro squad, besting the team 2-0 on Ancient and Dust2 to claim their first win with their new roster and their first win at the BLAST Premier Fall Groups. While it is too early to have definitive takeaways on this roster's prospects, it was a fantastic debut for Roland "ultimate" Tomkowiak and Justin "jks" Savage, while Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken also had a strong performance despite taking on IGL duties.
The series began on Ancient with Liquid starting on their T-side in good form. The team won their first three maps in a row before VP were able to get on the board. With Mareks "YEKINDAR" Gaļinskis leading the scoreboard, Liquid would take their T-side 8-4 to put VP on the backfoot ahead of Liquid's CT-side. After switching sides, the team were the first to find map point at 12-7 before a number of slip ups and great play from VP allowed them to find five rounds in a row to force overtime. During this overtime, which was a grueling triple-OT affair, neither side was able to find an advantage.
However, what ended up being the X-factor that allowed Liquid to finally take their map pick 22-20 was ultimate coming alive. The Polish AWPer was relatively quiet in regulation, however he showed a new side in overtime, ultimately ending the map with 32 kills to help secure the first map.
Moving onto VP's map pick, Liquid were once again able to start the first half on the right foot, winning their CT-side with a narrow 7-5 lead with a leading performance from Keith "NAF" Markovic. In the second half, Liquid completely blew VP away, with the Russian squad unable to accomplish much, winning only a single round as Twistzz in particular went absolutely massive. When the dust settled on Dust2, Liquid managed to take the map 13-6 to take the 2-0 win and set up a showdown against world #1 NAVI.
Liquid will head to their next test tomorrow at 11:00AM.
Virtus.proLiquid| Virtus.pro |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Dzhami 'Jame' Ali |
48 - 41 | +7 | 79.0 | 67.2% | 1.09 |
| Evgenii 'FL1T' Lebedev |
34 - 47 | -13 | 76.9 | 67.2% | 0.93 |
| Denis 'electroNic' Sharipov |
38 - 48 | -10 | 67.3 | 68.9% | 0.86 |
| David 'n0rb3r7' Danielyan |
37 - 49 | -12 | 65.3 | 59.0% | 0.82 |
| Petr 'fame' Bolyshev |
34 - 45 | -11 | 61.7 | 67.2% | 0.81 |
| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken |
50 - 35 | +15 | 95.1 | 77.0% | 1.33 |
| Keith 'NAF' Markovic |
51 - 37 | +14 | 86.1 | 90.2% | 1.31 |
 Justin 'jks' Savage |
39 - 40 | -1 | 80.1 | 77.0% | 1.14 |
 Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis |
45 - 41 | +4 | 75.0 | 72.1% | 1.13 |
 Roland 'ultimate' Tomkowiak |
42 - 38 | +4 | 70.1 | 62.3% | 1.00 |
