NA gets rocked in Round 2 of BLAST Bounty Season 1
Both Liquid and FaZe were victims of upsets in the second round of the BLAST Bounty Season 1 Closed Qualifier, knocking out the remaining North American representatives, save for G2 rising star and Rookie of the Year candidate Mario "malbsMd" Samayoa.
Liquid fell to the completely rebuilt Heroic roster in a three-map series, despite stealing Heroic's map pick of Mirage to kick off the series. After a stellar match against 9Pandas in round one, Justin "jks" Savage failed to make an impact all series, and Liquid's decision-making and shot-calling looked off in all three maps. With the win, Heroic claims their second bounty of the event after beating the higher-seeded 3DMAX earlier.
HEROICLiquid| HEROIC |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Álvaro 'SunPayus' García |
52 - 39 | +13 | 85.8 | 77.9% | 1.32 |
 Simon 'yxngstxr' Boije |
56 - 44 | +12 | 79.6 | 77.9% | 1.17 |
| Linus 'LNZ' Holtäng |
37 - 45 | -8 | 61.5 | 72.1% | 0.95 |
 Yasin 'xfl0ud' Koç |
38 - 51 | -13 | 69.5 | 70.6% | 0.95 |
 Andrey 'tN1R' Tatarinovich |
37 - 42 | -5 | 60.1 | 75.0% | 0.92 |
| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken |
51 - 39 | +12 | 81.8 | 83.8% | 1.13 |
 Guy 'NertZ' Iluz |
55 - 46 | +9 | 79.7 | 64.7% | 1.11 |
 Roland 'ultimate' Tomkowiak |
47 - 43 | +4 | 63.7 | 79.4% | 1.08 |
| Keith 'NAF' Markovic |
39 - 46 | -7 | 73.9 | 73.5% | 0.92 |
 Justin 'jks' Savage |
29 - 48 | -19 | 54.1 | 70.6% | 0.71 |
FaZe's debut event with Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski started with a shaky win against M80, but ends with a shocking 0-2 loss to paiN Gaming, highlighted by a (look away, long-time FaZe fans) second-half collapse on their pick of Inferno. While EliGE led the team in a losing effort on Dust2, he was ice cold on Inferno.
paiNFaZe| paiN |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 David 'dav1deuS' Tapia Maldonado |
38 - 31 | +7 | 92.0 | 83.0% | 1.31 |
 João 'snow' Vinicius |
33 - 24 | +9 | 71.6 | 78.7% | 1.11 |
| Rodrigo 'biguzera' Bittencourt |
27 - 30 | -3 | 68.9 | 70.2% | 1.08 |
| Lucas 'nqz' Soares |
26 - 28 | -2 | 63.7 | 70.2% | 0.94 |
| Kaue 'kauez' Kaschuk |
23 - 26 | -3 | 54.8 | 76.6% | 0.88 |
| FaZe |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Helvijs 'broky' Saukants |
32 - 23 | +9 | 68.9 | 70.2% | 1.09 |
 Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski |
31 - 32 | -1 | 74.0 | 66.0% | 0.93 |
 Håvard 'rain' Nygaard |
24 - 30 | -6 | 66.6 | 70.2% | 0.85 |
 Finn 'karrigan' Andersen |
27 - 36 | -9 | 66.2 | 63.8% | 0.82 |
 David 'frozen' Čerňanský |
24 - 28 | -4 | 60.9 | 70.2% | 0.79 |
Both teams are still navigating recent roster changes, but both also have to be disappointed to lose to teams they realistically should have beaten. NA's lone representative in the event, once again, is now G2's malbsMd. G2 themselves looked a bit shaky in their debut with Nikita "HeavyGod" Martynenko, losing map one but recovering to win their opening series against B8.
G2 and malbsMd face BIG, who's seeking to claim G2's $70K bounty, on January 19th at 01:30PM.
