Liquid dreams drained by Spirit

Team Liquid suffered from a poor performance on Vertigo in their match agains Heroic yesterday and would have to fight their way through it again after Spirit picked the map for the opener. It started off well for the North American side with the pistol and the following two rounds, bearing mind they chose to start on the theoretically harder T side as well.

The first gunround went the way of Spirit, with the CIS team shutting down Liquids A split. One of the key players for the NA side who went missing against Heroic was Jonathan "ELiGE" Jablonowski but he showed that he was in the mood today with two massive entries in the fifth round to crack open the B site.

Liquid failed to get any momentum going though as they sloppily gave away the following round against Spirit's half buy. As the CT side tied the game 4-4 things were starting to look bad again on the map that the NA team have lost 5 games in a row, Liquid were forced to take an eco in the tenth and give Spirit a two round lead.

Spirit began to run away with the first half, stringing together three rounds on the trot but their own momentum was snuffed out by a solid team round from the NA team which gave them five rounds on the less favoured T side.

Liquid's surprise pick to start T side maybe had a hint of 4d chess in it, in getting five rounds they had enough to give themself a chance to build momentum on their CT side but if they had hoped to get a good T side in those dreams fell apart.

Igor "w0nderful" Zhdanov was showing that despite being just 17 the big stage nerves weren't effecting him at all as he led his teams defense with 14 kills. Liquid looked to have made it 6-9 with a 3v1 post-plant in the final round but w0nderful was on fire as he switched to a rifle to clean up and clutch it out to bring his team to double digits.

Liquid's job to come back got even harder with a pistol round loss after Spirit's Glocks over ran the North American's A site. Liquid managed to rock the boat by stealing a round but couldn't build off of it at all as Spirit waltzed into the A bombsite with ten seconds left in the next rounds to bring them to within three rounds of the map win.

A big 2v4 from Mareks "YEKINDAR" Gaļinskis and Josh "oSee" Ohm gave Liquid a seventh round and ELiGE won an incredible 1v2 to save the map with just a Deagle.

It would all be in vain as Spirit would lock out the map win taking a 1-0 advantage going into map two Mirage. Liquid lost the pistol again on Mirage but managed to steal the second round away and a massive YEKINDAR 1v2 clutch in the following round forced the CT side onto just USPs in the fourth.

Brazilian teams have often been NA's foe down the years, who can forget Luminosity vs Liquid at MLG Columbus, but the home crowd were voicing their full support for the American side and let out a rapturous cheer when oSee and Nick "nitr0" Canella converted a 2v4 to win their fourth round of the half.

Once again Mirage looked to be a comfortable home ground for the American side as they took their total up to Seven with some incredible patient and sensible gameplay. ELiGE was still struggling for the NA team but luckily for the star rifler the rest of his team were performing, in particular YEKINDAR had found his feet once again with the scores at 8-3.

w0nderful was still the main spearhead of the Spirit side as he once again found the CIS team a opening in the thirteenth and got them just a fourth CT side round. The two teams would split the remaining two rounds evenly with Liquid having a 10-5 headstart going into the traditionally more favoured CT side. ELiGE though, was still struggling.

Spirit made it two for two on the pistol rounds on Mirage and this time they successfully converted the follow-up as Liquid invested fully in a second round buy which fell flat and their five round lead became two. Round 19 was huge as it was the first gun round and would set the tone for each teams economy and Keith "NAF" Markovic held firm on short.

Spirit's T side was looking scary as they brought the deficit to just two rounds again and put Liquids money in the bin, meaning it all rested on the CT team winning the 21st and a fast A play caught the Americans completely off guard. Liquid managed to scrape their dollars together for a final gun round and it was enough for the CT's to steal the round.

Liquid strung back to back retakes on the A site together to give them a four round lead and just two rounds off tieing the series 1-1. NAF showed why he is one of the best B site Anchors in the world as he held strong once again against the Spirit push to give his team map point and a shot of taking it to the third map Ancient.

oSee was in red hot form as he grabbed himself a 4k i nthe pistol to shut down the Spirit B push on pistol, Liquid winning the pistol gave them the following eco and YEKINDAR tore the Spirit attack apart in the third round with a Cave push giving him a shooting gallery in Mid. Spirit took their first round in the fourth and a 3k from IGL Leonid "chopper" Vishnyakov gave them their second.

Liquid lost their control on the map as Spirit won the anti-eco and the following gun round by a straight forward execute on the A site. The NA dream was flatlining as Spirit moved the Liquid defense around like puppets on strings and managed to get a 6-3 start on the T side of Ancient, one of the most CT sided maps in the pool.

Liquid managed to bring two rounds back but any hope of putting a comeback together was squashed when the Spirit squad walked out onto a open A site to give themselves a seventh round. ELiGE finally gave Liquid some hope when he clutched out the last round of the half with a fast 2k, it would be a mammoth task for the NA team to comeback on the T side, especially when you consider they only managed two in their win against NAVI.

Liquid wasted a huge opportunity to bring themselves back in the game as they lost a post-plant situation in the pistol, despite nitr0 getting three kills in a 1v3, as the bomb wasn't planted for him in A Main. Liquid managed to tie up the game after some great play from YEKINDAR but the rounds were close and extremely tense.

The 21st round would be massive as the CT economy was on the brink of collapse and the opening kill went the way of the Spirit side and once again the NA hope was quelled after a good shutout from the CIS squad. With that round the Spirit side would lock up a two round advantage as the Liquid team were forced onto pistols for the next round.

A massive 1v1 from NAF rescued a seemingly unwinnable round for the North American and the Brazilian crowd were singing again because they had forced Spirit back into an eco to let Liquid back into the game. Liquid took the slimmest of margins but Spirit had been by far the better team in the gun rounds so it would take a big effort from the NA side.

Spirit tied up the game after the nerves began to show from Liquid as they chose a poor plant position in the 2v3 to gift Spirit the round win. Liquid's A play fell completely flat as Pavel "s1ren" Ogloblin silenced the crowd with a convincing A site hold. The NA side had to take an eco and give Spirit match point in order to be able to scrape together a buy and try to force overtime.

Liquid were beginning to doubt every play they tried to make their way into the bomb sites and in the final round they had nothing to hold of the retake, as one by one they were picked off, much to the distaste of the Brazilian crowd.