Liquid won 12 of the last 14 rounds on Nuke from 1-9 down, but Boombl4 kept Mirage together and BetBoom took the last word.
BetBoom Team reached the quarter-finals of IEM Beijing 2026 on Wednesday with a 2-1 win over Team Liquid in the Group B lower bracket final: 13-5 on Anubis, 11-13 on Nuke and 13-11 on Mirage. Liquid are out in seventh to eighth place with $54,500, a few hours after they had knocked out TYLOO.
BetBoom2-1
LiquidStatsAnubis 13-5, Nuke 11-13, Mirage 13-11
Magnojez
JTLiquid’s Nuke turnaround
For a map and a half, it looked like a short afternoon. Liquid had won Anubis 13-4 twice in Beijing, against Aurora and TYLOO, and picked it again. Magnojez took it away from them. The BetBoom rifler went 21-5 with 114.5 ADR on the map, including a 1v3 on the A site, and Liquid did not win a single round on their T side.
BetBoom’s own Nuke pick started the same way. Boombl4 won the pistol round with a lurk and a backstab, and his side found timing after timing on the T side. Jorko kept getting caught on his way to his AWP spots, and Liquid were 1-9 down before they won two rounds to make it 3-9 at the half.
Coach flashie said after the series that the talk at the break was simple.
We talked in the break and we were like, if we win pistol, anything is possible and we managed to bring it back.
Liquid won the pistol and started playing like BetBoom had. NAF walked through smokes for double entries, EliGE won the trades in the yard, and when zorte’s AWP quad kill threatened to end the run, Liquid called the same A site hit three rounds in a row to level at 11-11. Their T side finished 10-2, and they won the map 13-11. EliGE went 23-14 with 105.3 ADR on Nuke.
Boombl4 holds Mirage together
The decider turned twice. Jorko, the 17-year-old who had been screaming in frustration on Nuke, opened Mirage as the best player on the server and Liquid went up early. BetBoom recovered to lead 7-5 at the half and took the second pistol on the way to 9-5.
Liquid came back again. JT found three kills up close to save one round, and Jorko’s AWP quad kill tied the map at 10-10.
The next round decided the series. BetBoom were on a weak force-buy, but Boombl4 found a multi-kill with the Tech-9, and NAF accidentally shot his own captain JT in the chaos. EliGE took the next round to make it 11-11, then zorte aced on the AWP for match point.
In the last round, Magnojez held the window against Liquid’s retake to close it out 13-11. Boombl4 finished Mirage 23-16 with 104.5 ADR and 91.7% KAST, the best map of anyone in the decider, and Magnojez was HLTV’s player of the match.
flashie said the small mistakes had cost Liquid.
We carried it over, the momentum, but we just let some rounds slip away that we shouldn’t have.
A third playoff run in a row
BetBoom have now reached the playoffs at three events in a row, after the Thunderpick World Championship final and the quarter-finals in Bucharest. They play their quarter-final on Friday 6 November, and the opponent is set once Group A finishes on Wednesday.
For Liquid, the next stop is the PGL Major Singapore. flashie said the team had been on the road for a month and would use the time to refresh their playbook. We follow the playoffs on our IEM Beijing 2026 page.
