Liquid put down the Hounds
Liquid have kept themselves alive in Dallas after a scrappy win against Grayhound, which Liquid 2-0 the Australians but both maps went to overtime and could have been won by either team. With the loss to Liquid, Grayhound head home after failing to pick up even a single map in Dallas.
Group B's lower bracket game kicked off on Grayhound's pick of Inferno, with Liquid opting to start on the T side. YEKINDAR and NAF's double in the pistols saw Liquid pick up the opening pistol of the series. nitr0's double opener of the B site saw Liquid convert against Grayhound's upgraded pistol buy. Liazz's 1v1 against NAF on the B site saw Grayhound put up their first round on the CT half.
NAF and YEKINDAR's full house on the A site saw Liquid win the half, taking an early 8-2 lead. Grayhound's third came on the back of a pistol buy around a single AWP that shut down a Liquid B hit. Grayhound eventually did manage to string four rounds in a row to end the first half with a 6-9 deficit as NAF won a 1v1 against aliStair in the final round of the first half.
Grayhound turned around a 4v5 in the second pistol with a Vexite triple seeing the Australian team cut Liquid's lead to two rounds. Grayhound converted against Liquid's force buy and eco to tie up the game at 9-9. INS' double on a bonus round from Grayhound saw them take the lead of the map at 10-9. EliGE gave Liquid their first CT round as he shut down quick long push. YEKINDAR's aggresive mid push saw Liquid secure three in a row to retake the lead of the map at 12-11.
A chaotic round at B site which saw Liquid drop a round to a low buy and it saw the Australians tie up the game again. nitr0's solo hold on A short saw Liquid keep trading rounds and a dual double kill round from NAF and EliGE saw Liquid secure 14. Grayhound though put three rounds together on the trot to take the map to overtime after Liquid hit map point first at 15-12.
Liazz's 1v1 against NAF gave Grayhound the first round in the overtime on the T side. oSee's double gave Liquid their first CT half round in overtime and it was a oSee quad kill to close out the first half of overtime at 17-16 in favour of Liquid.
Grayhound picked up the first round of the second half of overtime at the score was tied at 17-17. Liquid converted a 2v3 which included a NAF quad kill to put themselves on map point again but Liazz and aliStair's double kill saw Grayhound take the map the double overtime.
EliGE kicked off double overtime with a 1v2 on the A site which saw Liquid pick up their 19th on the T side. Liquid finally closed out the map at 22-19 with NAF being the star performer for Liquid with 36 kills.
The second map was Liquid's pick of Mirage and it was an INS quad kill that saw Grayhound secure the opening pistol, starting on the CT side. Grayhound took a 5-0 lead before Liquid won their first round on the T side. Two impactful rounds from EliGE and nitr0 saw Liquid string together a couple of rounds to get the score to 4-6 and also break Grayhound's economy. After starting the half with a 0-5 deficit, Liquid ended the first half at 6-9.
YEKINDAR's triple gave Liquid the second half pistol but Grayhound converted the force buy to secure their tenth. The force buy propelled Grayhound to 14 as Liquid economy was in the dumps. Liquid's second CT round came off the back of the double AWP opener from NAF. Vexite's triple in round 22 put Grayhound on map point but Liquid put together seven rounds in a row to take the second map to overtime as well.
Liquid picked up the first round in overtime and ended their CT half on overtime with a 17-16 lead. EliGE's 1v4 secured map and series point for Liquid but aliStair's quad kill saw Grayhound take the game to double overtime. It was Grayhound who had the chance to win the game in double overtime but nitr0 and EliGE's double saw Liquid take the game to triple overtime.
Triple overtime kicked off with Liazz's 1v3 to give Grayhound the lead again. Liquid ended the first half of triple overtime at 23-22. oSee's triple eventually saw Liquid close the map at 25-23 and secure the series 2-0. It was YEKINDAR who was the star on Mirage with 39 kills although Vexite topped the overall scoreboard with 46 kills, in a losing cause.
Vexite ended the series with 82 kills and a 1.30 rating, albeit in a losing cause.
LiquidGrayhound| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Keith 'NAF' Markovic |
69 - 57 | +12 | 99.1 | 70.8% | 1.26 |
 Josh 'oSee' Ohm |
66 - 50 | +16 | 70.0 | 74.2% | 1.22 |
 Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis |
63 - 61 | +2 | 77.9 | 74.2% | 1.09 |
| Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski |
58 - 61 | -3 | 73.3 | 66.3% | 1.04 |
| Nick 'nitr0' Cannella |
53 - 64 | -11 | 62.1 | 74.2% | 0.93 |
| Grayhound |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Declan 'Vexite' Portelli |
82 - 66 | +16 | 91.3 | 79.8% | 1.30 |
| Joshua 'INS' Potter |
56 - 63 | -7 | 80.6 | 65.2% | 1.01 |
| Alistair 'aliStair' Johnston |
58 - 59 | -1 | 64.1 | 67.4% | 0.98 |
| Jay 'Liazz' Tregillgas |
57 - 57 | +0 | 64.9 | 62.9% | 0.90 |
 Simon 'Sico' Williams |
39 - 64 | -25 | 61.7 | 64.0% | 0.75 |
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