Astralis made it through over a tough opponent, while Liquid was eliminated by a young team of upstarts.
Liquid out of IEM Krakow in Stage 1
Liquid was a round away from qualifying yesterday against G2 Esports. Today, they lost to a 19-year-old team on average.
FUT came in swinging on their map pick, beating Liquid 13-4 on Ancient. Dmytro ‘dem0n’ Myroshnychenko was unstoppable, making Liquid look like they were the young team.
On Nuke, FUT got started equally well on the CT side, accruing an 8-1 lead. Liquid brought it back slowly, but ultimately lost the crucial late-round situations that cost them the game, including misplays Roland ‘ultimate’ Tomkowiak himself.
The Polish AWPer had the weapon in multiple rounds and only managed 5 kills on the CT side. Liquid are back to the drawing board once again.
BC.Game defeated NIP and will face Vitality next
BC.Game came back from deficits twice in a row to break NIP’s hearts. First, on their pick of Dust2, it was the Portuguese hopeful Adones ‘krazy’ Nobre to carry the CT side. He repeatedly held onto B, getting a ludicrous 16.42% round swing on the defensive half.
On Nuke, it was Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev’s playground, as he did what it took to beat NIP on their home map. With 7 AWP kills on the map and 1.60 rating, he earned himself the chance to face off against his career rival Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut with his superteam, Vitality.
Astralis lost to NRG but rebounded against GamerLegion
The international Danish squad started the day with a loss to NRG, icnluding two Team Liquid rejects. It was a close series where they got exposed on Inferno, usually a great calling map for Rasmus ‘HooXi’ Nielsen.
Thankfully, they turned it around in their decider against GamerLegion. They gave them only 7 rounds in a 2-0 stomp, in a game where everyone had their moments, but Jakob ‘jabbi’ Nygaard stood out.
Meant to be a star that cost 2 million euros to buy along with Martin ‘stavn’ Lund, maybe now he will deliver on his prowess in this international Astralis.
Notable fixtures tomorrow
NAVI vs PARIVISION – 14:00 CET
Team Spirit vs Astralis – 16:30 CET
Vitality vs BC.Game – 19:00 CET
Will NAVI be able to contend with recent Bounty winners, PARIVISION? Or will B1ad3 humble the up-and-coming squad?
Can Astralis compete with the likes of Team Spirit? Will the latter fall apart once again?
Will s1mple get his revenge on ZywOo?
