Rare Atom smash Liquid in EPL opener
In a shock upset, Liquid have dropped their opening match in ESL Pro League Season 17 following a crushing 2-0 upset loss to Chinese squad Rare Atom.
Starting the series on Inferno, Liquid quickly letting their opponent pick Inferno as Andrew "Kaze" Khong and co. won their opening T-side pistol and the following two rounds. Despite an eventual answer from Liquid, the NA favorites struggled to put consecutive rounds together for the majority of the half, paving the way for Rare Atom to win their T-side 9-6. After switching sides, Rare Atom were the first to find double digits and match point due to a clinical CT-side and a dismal showing from Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski and Keith "NAF" Markovic. Towards the end of the map, Liquid had a chance to save some face as they won the next four rounds to find double digits, however it was too little too late as Rare Atom clinched the map 16-11.
Moving onto Overpass, despite it being Liquid's map pick, they looked absolutely lost on the map as they couldn't gain any ground on their T-side, struggling to find kills or consistent bomb plants. This failure allowed Rare Atom to clinch their CT-side 13-2 before sending Liquid down into the lower bracket with a perfect T-side. Over the course of the series, to add insult to injury, Rare Atom won all four pistol rounds while Malaysian AWPer kaze only died four times on Overpass.
LiquidRare Atom| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis |
26 - 37 | -11 | 65.8 | 63.0% | 0.89 |
 Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski |
28 - 35 | -7 | 63.3 | 60.9% | 0.82 |
| Josh 'oSee' Ohm |
20 - 33 | -13 | 56.3 | 58.7% | 0.72 |
 Keith 'NAF' Markovic |
18 - 31 | -13 | 54.8 | 60.9% | 0.72 |
| Nick 'nitr0' Cannella |
17 - 36 | -19 | 50.2 | 56.5% | 0.56 |
| Rare Atom |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Andrew 'kaze' Khong |
39 - 14 | +25 | 83.9 | 95.7% | 1.61 |
 Yi 'JamYoung' Yang |
33 - 22 | +11 | 85.5 | 87.0% | 1.36 |
| Qianhao 'Moseyuh' Chen |
40 - 25 | +15 | 85.4 | 82.6% | 1.32 |
| Jingxiang 'Mercury' Wang |
34 - 31 | +3 | 82.5 | 76.1% | 1.23 |
| Zhuo 'advent' Liang |
26 - 18 | +8 | 64.2 | 82.6% | 1.22 |
