Cloud9 pass Liquid in upper bracket
The second upper bracket semifinal was to be between the top two NA teams, Cloud9 and Liquid. With the maps as Cobblestone, Mirage, and Train, it was sure to be an interesting match.
Tarik "tarik" Celik secured the pistol round on Cobblestone with three kills from the window on A. Cloud9 failed the second round however to a fast B play, but then took round three. The rounds kept going back and forth, with a big play by Jake "Stewie2K" Yip until round six when the fully American side won two in a row. Timothy "autimatic" Ta helped power his team to many consecutive rounds. With all members popping off, Cloud9 racked up twelve rounds in the first half to Liquid's three.
Keith "NAF" Markovic went big for the Liquid side and took the second pistol round. This gave Liquid a way back into the game, but the new roster could not convert. Cloud9 ran away with the rest of the game and took Cobblestone 16-4.
Mirage kicked off with another triple kill by tarik, resulting in an early Cloud9 lead. Along with autimatic, Stewie2K got off to a good start, and the C9 side acquired a 6-0 lead. In round seven, Liquid won a pistol buy, but couldn't convert the round, putting their economy into the bin. NAF again bailed out his team and allowed Liquid to get some momentum on their CT side. The half eventually ended 9-6 for Cloud9 after the small Liquid comeback.
Cloud9 secured their third pistol round of the series, and with autimatic and Stewie at the helm, they took firm control of the second half. Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken helped Liquid scrounge a few rounds together and closed the round deficit to just three rounds. However, Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham pulled off two huge rounds and put Cloud9 onto match point. Liquid was unable to bring it back however, and Cloud9 took Mirage 16-11 and the series 2-0.
LiquidCloud9| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Keith 'NAF' Markovic |
29 - 40 | -11 | 82.0 | 66.0% | 1.02 |
| Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken |
35 - 37 | -2 | 75.5 | 70.2% | 1.00 |
 Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski |
26 - 39 | -13 | 70.6 | 66.0% | 0.85 |
 Lucas 'steel' Lopes |
25 - 35 | -10 | 63.1 | 66.0% | 0.82 |
| Nick 'nitr0' Cannella |
19 - 35 | -16 | 42.9 | 61.7% | 0.63 |
| Cloud9 |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Timothy 'autimatic' Ta |
49 - 29 | +20 | 104.6 | 78.7% | 1.49 |
| Tyler 'Skadoodle' Latham |
36 - 22 | +14 | 75.1 | 76.6% | 1.31 |
| William 'RUSH' Wierzba |
33 - 27 | +6 | 89.2 | 80.9% | 1.29 |
| Jake 'Stewie2K' Yip |
31 - 29 | +2 | 70.6 | 83.0% | 1.16 |
| Tarik 'tarik' Celik |
37 - 28 | +9 | 76.9 | 74.5% | 1.13 |
Cloud9 now moves on to the upper bracket final against SK, while Liquid fall to the lower bracket.
