In a tournament that has already seen a handful of surprising upsets, Team Liquid are the first top seed to get eliminated from the event.
During the group stage, Liquid lost to Team Secret in the winners match and then they were upset by Keen Gaming in the decider match.
All of that led to one of the best teams in the current Dota Pro Circuit season fighting for their lives in a single-game elimination round to start the playoffs. Their opponent, Chaos Esports Club, is a newer team that has shown early signs of becoming a common sight in Major events.
It only took about 13 minutes for Chaos to show that they weren’t scared of the matchup, and Liquid were put at a huge gold deficit early on. It got really bad late when Chaos dealt with pressure in the top lane and managed to counterplay Liquid through mid.
It was a dominant performance by Chaos as they cleaned up a set of kills and wrapped the game up in just under 23 minutes. This put Liquid out of the tournament in a tie for 13th, their worst placement of the season so far.
The International 2017 champions joined Natus Vincere, EHOME, and Forward Gaming as the first teams dispatched from the event.
With the single-elimination round finished, the next round will feature best-of-three series until the best-of-five grand finals. Chaos will face Virtus Pro in the next round and try to pull off their second groundbreaking upset of the tournament.
Matches pick back up at 7:30am CT on March 18 when Mineski and J Storm take the stage.
Published: Mar 17, 2019 03:52 pm