The best teams from the Americas have won their opening series in the fifth season of StarSeries i-League.
Team Liquid and SK Gaming both prevailed in their openers of the swiss phase. But neither team found an easy path to victory, and for SK Gaming it may even raise suspicions of the team’s overall form.
SK’s first opponent of the event were Vici Gaming Flash, an all-star roster containing some of China’s best Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players. Despite SK’s overall level of talent and firepower, VGF were able to absolutely humiliate the two-time Major champions on the opening map Cache. They took the Brazilian roster down with a staggering 16-1 victory.
The second map of the series, Inferno, started out looking much better for SK, who ended the opening half with a 10-5 scoreline. Even so, VGF came out swinging during the second half, and quickly erased SK’s round lead. Thankfully for SK, they were able to push the map to an overtime situation, and they didn’t surrender a single round to VGF.
After two miserable games for SK the Brazilian team looked fired up Train, the deciding map of the series. SK only gave away two rounds in total, ending the series with a dominant 16-2 scoreline.
While SK were on the ropes, Team Liquid were able to dismantle NRG in their opening series. Liquid never looked to have lost control throughout the series, as the team’s star Keith “NAF” Markovic consistently dismantled their opponents. Although the opening map, Cache, looked particularly easy for Liquid, a comfortable 16-6 win, NRG didn’t go down without a fight on Inferno. Despite only getting five rounds during the opening half, NRG proceeded to reach 11 rounds before Liquid were ultimately able to close out the map and the series.
This places both SK and Liquid in the 1-0 scoreline matches that will be played tomorrow.
