OpTic Gaming beat Team Liquid 16-9 today in the first round of DreamHack Masters Malmö.
This loss puts the North American team in a difficult position for the rest of the tournament since they’ll have to win more best-of-three series to qualify for the playoffs.
This was an uncharacteristic match for Liquid. They usually play well on Overpass, but they were demolished by OpTic in the first half of the match. The Danes won it 14-1 with two sequences of seven-straight rounds.
The North Americans recovered in the second half and threated to take the game to overtime, but OpTic just had a huge lead to work with. Mathias “MSL” Lauridsen top-fragged with 26 kills. Sweden apparently draws the best out of MSL since he won the MVP award last year at DreamHack Masters Stockholm.
With this win over Liquid, OpTic now have a better chance of going forward in the tournament. They’ll face another tough opponent in Natus Vincere tomorrow.
As for Liquid, they don’t look nearly as dominant as they were in the first half of the CS:GO season. This loss could affect the team’s confidence, a factor that they historically lacked in the past.
Liquid will play a best-of-three elimination match against North tomorrow at 5am CT. OpTic will face Na’Vi right after at 8:40am CT.
Published: Oct 1, 2019 09:12 am