Liquid dismantle MIBR at ELEAGUE
The second opening match in Group A saw Liquid face off against MIBR, with the two teams meeting for the first time since the Brazilian core took the win at StarSeries i-League Season 5. The maps for this metting saw the two teams battle on Inferno, Cache and Mirage.
Inferno began with a common theme throughout the entire map with Liquid staying comfortably ahead. With the North Americans securing the first five rounds with ease, it was easy to see where Nick "nitr0" Cannella's 1.71 rating was going to be coming from. With MIBR only troubling their opponents a few times in the first half, the CT-side went Liquid's way for a 9-6 lead in part thanks to Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken's defensive theatrics with the deagle to put the map in firm control of Liquid.
The second half of the game started with MIBR taking the pistol round, but found themselves shut down by Liquid's eco round to allow the North Americans to increase their lead. The Brazilian-led squad were only able to find an opening to to secure one single round before Liquid comfortably nailed down a 16-8 win.
Cache was up next, and it started off looking like it was going to be a mirror of the first map with a brutal first half. Fernando "fer" Alvarenga helped guide his team through to a 6-0 lead in the first half on the T-side, but this was not to last. Liquid, helped along by nitr0's AWP ace, rallied and saw themselves getting close to even the half, with MIBR narrowly ahead with an 8-7 score.
The second half was incredibly one sided, much to MIBR's disappointment. Starting from the pistol round, Liquid's T-side saw them take seven rounds in a row before MIBR even managed to get back onto the scoreboard. With Keith "NAF" Markovic in stellar form for his team, four frags went his way to secure the final round in fine fashion for a 16-9 win.
LiquidMIBR| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken |
52 - 21 | +31 | 98.7 | 87.8% | 1.63 |
| Keith 'NAF' Markovic |
41 - 21 | +20 | 88.8 | 87.8% | 1.50 |
 Nick 'nitr0' Cannella |
37 - 28 | +9 | 84.1 | 89.8% | 1.43 |
| Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski |
39 - 32 | +7 | 84.0 | 73.5% | 1.23 |
 Epitacio 'TACO' de Melo |
14 - 34 | -20 | 46.0 | 63.3% | 0.63 |
| MIBR |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fernando 'fer' Alvarenga |
33 - 38 | -5 | 73.2 | 69.4% | 0.92 |
| Gabriel 'FalleN' Toledo |
30 - 35 | -5 | 59.1 | 59.2% | 0.90 |
| Tarik 'tarik' Celik |
26 - 35 | -9 | 64.4 | 63.3% | 0.88 |
| Marcelo 'coldzera' David |
24 - 40 | -16 | 58.8 | 59.2% | 0.74 |
| Jake 'Stewie2K' Yip |
23 - 36 | -13 | 56.1 | 59.2% | 0.73 |
This result sees Liquid line up a match against Astralis in the Winners' Match on Monday, whilst MIBR are set to see their two American parts face off against their former teammates of Cloud9 on Tuesday. Group B is set to start tomorrow, with the first game seeing Na`Vi take on Fnatic at 2 PM EDT.
