Team Liquid and FaZe Clan will face off in the BLAST Pro Series Los Angeles grand finals tonight. The North American team hasn’t dropped a single map throughout the entire tournament and will have a chance to avenge their loss against FaZe in the BLAST Pro Series Miami grand finals in April.
In today’s semifinals, Liquid defeated Cloud9 2-0 in North America’s derby, while FaZe took down NRG 2-0.
Liquid dominated the group stage and maintained their form against Cloud9. The first map of the derby was played on Mirage, which was C9’s pick. It seemed like Cloud9 didn’t have the teamplay prepared to deal with Liquid’s firepower. The first half finished 11-4 in Liquid’s favor, a huge advantage before switching to the CT-side.
Despite losing the second pistol, Liquid had no problem whatsoever closing out the game 16-8 after they got their economy rolling. Keith “NAF” Markovic and Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski combined for 47 kills, a huge amount of eliminations compared to the rest of the team.
Almost every Counter-Strike fan must have thought that Liquid were going to have an easy win on Inferno, one of their best maps. And they weren’t wrong because EliGE and crew won 12 straight rounds in another outstanding performance playing as terrorists.
Although the first half finished 13-2, Cloud9 fought hard and started a comeback effort. They claimed the second pistol and won the following seven rounds. Everybody on the team was contributing, but Liquid won the last round of the game and avoided overtime, winning 16-14 to advance to the grand finals.
FaZe and NRG started out on Train, NRG’s map pick. It wasn’t a wise choice for them, though, since the North Americans couldn’t win a single fight against FaZe. The international team played an impeccable CT-side, dropping only one round to a force buy and moved to the T-side with a huge 14-1 advantage.
NRG at least had a moral victory by winning six rounds in a row in the second half, including the pistol. But as soon as FaZe broke their win streak, NRG’s money was gone and they had to play the last round with just SMGs and pistols. FaZe closed it out 16-7 with a good performance from all of their star players.
Moving on to Nuke, the first half was actually balanced, especially if you compare it to Train. FaZe had a 7-3 advantage despite losing the pistol round, but NRG won some of the last rounds of their CT-side to move to the second half of Nuke only one round behind at 8-7.
NRG claimed the second pistol too when Olof “olofmeister” Kajbjer couldn’t win a one-vs-three situation, but they failed to convert the following round against FaZe’s force buy. That round played a huge role in FaZe’s win because they established a strong economy. Nikola “NiKo” Kovač finished with 33 kills and was FaZe’s main carry in the 16-11 win.
Liquid look consistent and are the favorites to win their fifth major tournament in a row. The CS:GO team is wearing the organization’s Marvel Avengers’ uniforms at an event for the first time since the partnership was made. FaZe, on the other hand, will play their first grand final since Filip “NEO” Kubski took over the in-game leadership in May.
Cloud9 should feel proud of their performance after making it to the semifinals and almost winning a map against Liquid, the best team in the world at the moment. It was the perfect debut for their new lineup and fans are already seeing some promise. Eighteen-year-old rifler Tyson “TenZ” Ngo proved himself as one of North America’s top prospects and played well, especially with the Desert Eagle.
This was NRG’s second event with new in-game leader Peter “stanislaw” Jarguz, who was brought in to push the team to grand finals. Vincent “Brehze” Cayonte and crew are yet to play one in 2019, however, and if results don’t come quickly, NRG may make another roster change.
Liquid and FaZe will face each other in the BLAST Pro Series Los Angeles grand finals at 9pm CT. The winner will earn $125,000.
