Gambit secure their second win in ESL Pro League

The ESL Pro League match of the day was a banger. Both teams came with a win from yesterday and are the favorites to qualify to the playoffs from group D. The #2 team in the world secured the W through two victories on Vertigo and Mirage.

The first map for this series was Team Liquid’s pick on Inferno, and it went very well in the first round, taking the pistol round. Starting on the T-side Team Liquid breakthrough Gambit’s defense and racing to a 3-0 start before Gambit got their first round on the board. Gambit saw some success with a passive B hold, and hobbit with a quad-kill doing a great job in the first half. Eventually, FalleN’s troops found the formula to punish the Gambit approach, taking most of the final rounds and takes the lead 9-6 in the first half. Gambit was not about to go down without a fight, and they racked up the four first rounds in the second half. NAF stepped up with a triple kill and bringing the first round for Team Liquid on their CT side. Liquid did stabilize as they converted the momentum and winning 5 rounds in a row, closing out the map 16-12.

Gambit kicked into another gear as the team moved onto their map pick of Vertigo, starting on the T side, as they winning the pistol. However, it didn’t affect Liquid, winning the force buy and the second. A 1vs3 clutch from sh1ro kept Gambit alive. From this point, Gambit began to struggle, particularly due to their inability to find an effective way to get through Liquid defense. Liquid found repeated success at hold B site and converted that success to a 9-6 lead at the half. The second half quickly became a fight as Gambit managed to win the pistol and the next, leaving things tied up at 9-9. At that point, the two teams went back-and-forth trading rounds. Liquid hitting match point, but a final spurt by Gambit brought it back even after 30 rounds.
The two teams continued the brawl in overtime, but it was finally Gambit who showed the extra and could take the map 19-16 and force it to the third map of Mirage. Sh1ro had a big impact on holding Gambit alive in the series.

Gambit winning the pistol and takes the lead 3-0. Despite a great start for gambit, Liquid finding their way to get six rounds in a row and began to find a way to close both sides on the map. Once again EliGE and company powered to a 9-6 lead in the first half. In the second half, Liquid struggled and was nowhere near as competitive. Gambit started rolling over Liquid and winning 10 rounds in a row and steamrolled them to set the final score at 16-6.

12-16 (Inferno) | EliGE – 1.36 Rating / 22-14 K-D / 86.1 ADR

19-16 (Vertigo) | sh1ro – 1.40 Rating / 24-20 K-D / 82.2 ADR

16-12 (Mirage) | sh1ro – 1.54 Rating / 26-13 K-D / 97.5 ADR

MVP: Abay "Hobbit" Khassenov | 1.29 Rating / 73-57 K-D / 85.2 ADR