Gambit best Liquid to advance in the upper bracket

A 2-1 victory from Gambit over FalleN’s troops sees them move on in the upper bracket of the BLAST World Final event, where their next match will be against the winner of G2 vs. Vitality. Meanwhile, Team Liquid will be taking upon the Danish squad from Astralis in a nail-biting elimination match. 

19:30 (CET) Friday: Team Liquid vs. Astralis (lower semi-finals) 
16:30 (CET) Saturday: Gambit vs. G2/Vitality (upper final) 

Team Liquid started looking solid on the offensive side, as they quickly bagged the first four rounds of the half to take a 0-4 lead, but Gambit then began to shut down Liquid’s aggressive plays and would go on to take the lead at 7-6. However, FalleN’s men found success in the last two rounds of the half and took a narrow 7-8 lead into the break. The second half saw Gambit win eight out of eleven rounds to hit matchup, which put Team Liquid in comeback mode. They managed to close the gap to just one round at 14-15 but missed the last chance to force overtime. 

Action then moved to Gambit’s pick, Vertigo, where Liquid came out on top after a very tense game. Gambit moved onto the CT-side with a slight edge but in the second half Liquid patiently started to rip apart the Russian's defense which forced them to give away mistakes. NAF and FalleN won several key moments and lead the way for Liquid, posting a 1.20 and 1.16 rating respectively. Out of FalleN’s 21 frags, thirteen of them were with the AWP. 

The series was set to be decided on Overpass with Gambit beginning on the CT-side. Something, the Russian youngsters used to set up a dominant defence, where they went up 13-2 before the switch. The dominance continued in the second half, as Gambit closed out the series in confident style with a 16-2 end result.

Gambit - Liquid (2-1) | BLAST Premier World Final

16-14 (Inferno) | hobbit - 1.44 Rating / 25-16 K-D / 88.0 ADR

13-16 (Vertigo) | sh1ro - 1.29 Rating / 23-15 K-D / 75.2 ADR

16-2 (Overpass) | nafany - 2.09 Rating / 23-7 K-D / 132.9 ADR

MVP: Abay "Hobbit" Khasenov - 1.32 Rating / 59-39 K-D / 84.4 ADR