Liquid survive Nuke scare to claim 2-0 victory
ESL Pro League Season 20 is back with Groups C and D, which means Liquid are back in the servers. Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken and co. opened their EPL campaign against ENCE in a series that could have turned sour early on.
Eventually, Liquid would come out as the winners, advancing to the upper-bracket semifinals, where they will meet the winner of the RED Canids v. Virtus.pro series on Thursday.
The series kicked off with an almost flawless CT-side from Liquid on ENCE's pick of Nuke, only losing three rounds. That 9-3 first half was followed up with three rounds in quick succession, which saw Liquid take a 12-3 lead. And then ENCE woke up, going on a huge streak of their own and threatening to send the map to overtime. ENCE closed the deficit to 12-11 before Liquid staved off the potential comeback.
After not dropping a single pistol round on Nuke, Liquid started Anubis with another pistol round win on the CT-side and followed it up with three more rounds. Both teams exchanged rounds before ENCE got three in a row, but it would be Liquid taking a 7-5 lead before heading into the T-side. ENCE finally won a pistol round to kick off the second half but would only claim one more after that, as Liquid were quick to respond a take an 11-7 lead, before taking the series win after a 13-7 Anubis.
LiquidENCE| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Roland 'ultimate' Tomkowiak |
47 - 25 | +22 | 106.5 | 81.8% | 1.65 |
 Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken |
37 - 21 | +16 | 77.2 | 90.9% | 1.37 |
 Justin 'jks' Savage |
33 - 27 | +6 | 86.9 | 79.5% | 1.20 |
| Keith 'NAF' Markovic |
25 - 25 | +0 | 66.3 | 70.5% | 0.97 |
 Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis |
28 - 34 | -6 | 77.0 | 59.1% | 0.88 |
| ENCE |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Paavo 'podi' Heiskanen |
32 - 35 | -3 | 80.0 | 63.6% | 1.06 |
| Kacper 'Kylar' Walukiewicz |
29 - 32 | -3 | 71.4 | 61.4% | 0.97 |
 Viktor 'sdy' Orudzhev |
25 - 33 | -8 | 77.9 | 70.5% | 0.89 |
| Krzysztof 'Goofy' Górski |
23 - 34 | -11 | 52.8 | 61.4% | 0.70 |
 Lukas 'gla1ve' Rossander |
22 - 36 | -14 | 57.2 | 59.1% | 0.69 |
