Liquid froze in the Royal Arena
After a stellar Group B performance, Liquid entered the server with a chance to qualify for the BLAST Premier: World Finals 2022 in Abu Dhabi. Out of the many scenarios that gave Liquid one of the final two spots at the last tier one event of the year, the North Americans hoped to go all the way in this tournament, starting the playoff run with a win over Heroic.
The map veto featured Heroic choosing to play Overpass, whilst Liquid resorted to the always reliable Inferno. Vertigo was left out as the decider map.
Overpass started with the Danes winning after a very close T-side pistol round that they managed to win. A quick 3-0 opening had the crowd going but Liquid got on the board with their first gun round of the match. Liquid nullified Heroic's attack one more time before conceding the fourth round win to the home team. A sneaky René "TeSeS" Madsen won Heroic's fifth with a quick run to the A-site that caught Liquid with the pants down. Mareks "YEKINDAR" Gaļinskis answered back with two from his own on Connector that made things easier for the North Americans. Liquid was looking well-organized as the team won another round heavily based on macro plays, making the score 5-4 in favor of Heroic. In a round where the Danes only had one rifle, Liquid tied the game up only losing one player in the process. Heroic replied, in the same way, the very next round. The trading of rounds continued to the end of the half, that came with Heroic leading 8-7.
The second half started with Liquid super fluid and winning the first three rounds, with Nick "nitr0" Cannella playing a huge part in the fragging. The next two rounds were very close but both ended with Heroic on top with only one player remaining. The game was tied 10-10 and Liquid had to play mostly with pistols and, naturally, gave the lead back to the Danes. In the very next round, the North Americans had to take a full economic buy, giving away another point to Heroic, making it four in a row. The home team was catching fire and Liquid was getting frozen, as a B-site fake didn't get things rolling again for Captain America. Heroic continued the winning spell and closed the map 16-10
Heroic continued the winning ways in Inferno by winning the CT-side pistol round. Two more for the Danes and Liquid got its first gun round of the map, which went NA's way. 3-1 was the score, but Liquid fell to four in the first seconds of the following round. Despite that, on the back of YEKINDAR's double kill, Liquid shrank Heroic's lead down to one. With a chance to tie the game and take economic control of the half, Liquid conceded the fourth round win to Heroic. The Danes got up to a 7-2 lead before Liquid got another round. This was a first half of streaks, with the Americans coming back into the game with six rounds of wins in a row, ending the half leading 8-7.
Heroic got another pistol round win, this time on the T-side. The Danes didn't start the half with the usual three round win, as Liquid, after losing the second, managed to get the third, tying the game up 9-9. Heroic got three in a row and Liquid answered with two before saving two rounds as they gave away the 13th to the opposition. The save proved worth as the North Americans managed to win the following round. The game was very close, 13-12 was the score with the home team leading, but Heroic were falling behind in the economic war and so they had to invest a little less in round 26, which went to Liquid. The very next round was a full eco from the Danish team that Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski and Josh "oSee" Ohm took full advantage of and gave their team the 14-13 lead. Round 28 was very scrappy, but Liquid managed to get the map point. Heroic survived the two rounds and sent the game to overtime.
This wasn't a pistol round, but Heroic won another start of a half, this time in OT. Liquid came back with a triple kill from Keith "NAF" Markovic and a solid final round of the half in OT. After the side change, Liquid kept the T-side streak going and once again had two chances to close the map and go to Vertigo. After not getting the win on the first chance during OT, Liquid closed Inferno 19-17.
Liquid went back to winning ways in pistol rounds, this time on the T-side of Vertigo, on the back of oSee's triple kill. The immediate force buy from Heroic got close, but the 2-0 was there by the end of the round. The next round was also very close, but Liquid got the three straight to open the T-side affairs. The Danes got on the board thanks to a Rasmus "sjuush" Beck spray that got three players killed. The individual plays from Heroic were the difference makers early on in Vertigo, as the game was tied 3-3. Heroic got a 6-3 lead before Liquid managed to get a fourth, which came with a YEKINDAR entry that felled two opponents. But that was it from Liquid for the rest of the half. Heroic went to the T-side with a comfortable 11-4 lead.
Liquid got the CT-side pistol round and the next two in a very comfortable way, bringing the game back to an 11-7 score. Liquid fought well against the first gun round from Heroic, getting closer to the 11 from the Danes, but slipped against the one rifle and all TEC-9 buy the following round. Heroic got the next one, but on a force buy NAF got a triple kill with the AWP, getting his team back on track. 13-9 was the score after that round. Still, Heroic showed no signs of stopping, as the Danes got another round to get their 14th, and that put Liquid in a bad place in terms of finances. Taking advantage of that, Heroic got to map point whilst Liquid had 9. The North Americans went to the fight with little to play with and Heroic ended the series 16-9 to clinch a spot in the grand final.
With this loss, Liquid would be watching NIP closely to know if they play in Abu Dhabi or not.
LiquidHEROIC| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis |
74 - 58 | +16 | 90.3 | 70.1% | 1.30 |
 Keith 'NAF' Markovic |
61 - 52 | +9 | 76.1 | 71.3% | 1.08 |
 Nick 'nitr0' Cannella |
44 - 61 | -17 | 67.3 | 73.6% | 0.93 |
| Josh 'oSee' Ohm |
51 - 61 | -10 | 67.7 | 63.2% | 0.89 |
| Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski |
51 - 64 | -13 | 63.4 | 67.8% | 0.87 |
| HEROIC |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Martin 'stavn' Lund |
74 - 55 | +19 | 98.1 | 78.2% | 1.37 |
| Rasmus 'sjuush' Beck |
53 - 53 | +0 | 69.7 | 78.2% | 1.07 |
| René 'TeSeS' Madsen |
62 - 64 | -2 | 75.6 | 71.3% | 1.04 |
| Jakob 'jabbi' Nygaard |
61 - 58 | +3 | 70.5 | 66.7% | 1.01 |
| Casper 'cadiaN' Møller |
45 - 53 | -8 | 56.9 | 73.6% | 0.97 |
