Liquid doing what Brazil couldn't
Liquid was set to start their IEM Katowice journey against the hot-handed IHC, who convincingly took down the Brazilians in paiN and FURIA in remarkable upsets. IHC have seen their aggressive play unmatched by nearly any opponent and looked to continue their streak of beating Americas opponents when Liquid came to town.
The match started off with IHC getting their T-side on their map pick on Inferno looking like the world's best. Liquid would win the CT pistol, but for nine straight rounds IHC looked as if they were from another planet and simply dominated the Americans. The dominance would require Damian "daps" Steele to use almost all of his timeouts. However, the strategy seemed to work as Liquid recovered and would bring the half to a close at 6-9.
With Liquid now on the T-side, there were concerns that the Americans could not overcome the staunch defense of the Mongolians, especially after dropping the second-half pistol. However, you can't count out Nick "nitr0" Canella who pulled through in the clutch with several moments of brilliance to bring Liquid into the lead at 13-12 and later closing out the game at 16-13.
Liquid, now with all the momentum in the world headed into Overpass with an idea that IHC was actually not the invincible beast it was to it's fellow Americas teams. Comfortable on their own map pick, Liquid were able to jump out to a solid 6-1 lead, however they would stumble as they could not further push their lead as the Mongolians came roaring back and closed it out 10-5 in favor of Liquid.
The second half was just more of the same, but a little more back and forth, but the Liquid would begin to pull away thanks to the stellar individual plays from Keith "NAF" Markovic and Joshua "oSee" Ohm. The squad were able to firmly quash any comeback from the Mongolians as they closed out the map 16-6.
LiquidIHC| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Keith 'NAF' Markovic |
52 - 22 | +30 | 98.5 | 90.2% | 1.65 |
 Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski |
44 - 26 | +18 | 80.4 | 80.4% | 1.37 |
| Josh 'oSee' Ohm |
36 - 33 | +3 | 70.4 | 76.5% | 1.17 |
 Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis |
34 - 35 | -1 | 83.2 | 70.6% | 1.12 |
| Nick 'nitr0' Cannella |
17 - 31 | -14 | 52.4 | 60.8% | 0.77 |
| IHC |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Tengis 'sk0R' Batjargal |
41 - 36 | +5 | 96.9 | 66.7% | 1.20 |
| Sodbayar 'Techno' Munkhbold |
32 - 37 | -5 | 64.7 | 64.7% | 0.89 |
| Tuvshintugs 'Annihilation' Nyamdorj |
27 - 36 | -9 | 55.9 | 60.8% | 0.78 |
| Garidmagnai 'bLitz' Byambasuren |
24 - 40 | -16 | 64.7 | 58.8% | 0.72 |
| Baatarkhuu 'Bart4k' Batbold |
22 - 37 | -15 | 48.1 | 64.7% | 0.65 |
Liquid will now look to play against Natus Vincere on Monday at 01:30PM.
