VP hang on to take down Liquid
After being boosted with the quite literal, last minute arrival of Patsi, Team Liquid got the ESL Pro League Season 18 campaign underway against Virtus.pro (VP).
VP's pick of Inferno was the opening map of the series with VP starting on the CT side. It was a 9-0 start on the defensive side as Jame was reading Liquid like a book. FL1T team-killed fame which opened up the B site for Liquid to give them their first round but mir with 29 HP got a double opener from on top of Sandbag which saw VP get their tenth. Patsi and YEKINDAR openers saw Liquid string together a couple of rounds at B but it was VP with a 12-3 lead.
A Rainwaker and Patsi A hold saw Liquid take the second pistol and got four in a row before a FL1T triple saw VP get their first T round.. fame and mir opened up the B site in a 4v5 to give them their 14th. FL1T and mir opened the B site to put VP on map point and while Liquid has a better CT half than their abysmal T side, it was VP walking away with the map win at 16-11.
Mirage was Liquid's pick with VP starting on the CT side. Rainwaker and Patsi helped Liquid turn around a 3v5 to take the opening pistol and it was a 4-0 start with Patsi's double B opener giving Liquid the first gun round. After five straight rounds, a Jame 1v1 against oSee saw VP take their first round. It was back-to-back Jame 1v1s against oSee that saw VP make it two in a row. A Jame quad kill from Kitchen saw VP tie up the game at 6-6 and VP recovered it to a 9-6 half after starting the half at 0-5.
Source: ESL
Liquid took both pistols, which saw them get the second half underway and a triple from oSee's Dualies saw Liquid make a clean start to the second half. Liquid started with four in a row to take the lead of the map at 10-9. It was six straight from Liquid before VP got their first T round. A Patsi double saw Liquid turn around a 4v5 to help them secure map point but VP pulled three back in a row to take the map to overtime with mir coming in with a crucial triple kill in round 30.
It was a flawless CT side from Liquid to kick off overtime and Liquid managed to hold on to close the map at 19-17.
The series decider was on Anubis with Liquid picking up the opening round starting on the T side. It was a 4-0 start from Liquid and on the T sided map, it seemed like they would run away. VP though pulled it back and kept Liquid at 9-6 before taking the second pistol and going on to tie up the game. It was Liquid who raced up to a 14-11 lead but VP pulled five straight rounds to close the map at 16-14 and take the series 2-1.
LiquidVirtus.pro| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Aleks 'Rainwaker' Petrov |
58 - 53 | +5 | 71.3 | 74.2% | 1.11 |
 Robert 'Patsi' Isyanov |
60 - 64 | -4 | 74.8 | 72.0% | 1.03 |
 Josh 'oSee' Ohm |
56 - 56 | +0 | 63.2 | 74.2% | 0.98 |
 Keith 'NAF' Markovic |
48 - 54 | -6 | 61.4 | 71.0% | 0.93 |
 Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis |
51 - 61 | -10 | 60.2 | 63.4% | 0.85 |
| Virtus.pro |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dzhami 'Jame' Ali |
67 - 45 | +22 | 67.8 | 80.6% | 1.21 |
| Nikolay 'mir' Bityukov |
61 - 60 | +1 | 78.2 | 73.1% | 1.10 |
| Petr 'fame' Bolyshev |
53 - 55 | -2 | 63.4 | 80.6% | 1.08 |
| Evgenii 'FL1T' Lebedev |
57 - 57 | +0 | 65.0 | 71.0% | 0.97 |
| David 'n0rb3r7' Danielyan |
50 - 57 | -7 | 59.9 | 71.0% | 0.94 |
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