Cloud9, Liquid post wins at DH Austin

Following the end of the two opening group matches at DreamHack ZOWIE Open Austin, in which Brazilian duo Luminosity Gaming and Tempo Storm breezed past U.S. opposition, the tournament resumed with an NA classic between Cloud9, now with Alec "⁠Slemmy⁠" White as ingame leader, and CLG.

Many certainly believed that this would be a very close affair, but it turned out to be a one-sided game as Cloud9 were simply dominant from the get-go.

Cloud9 stomped CLG 

After a perfect pistol round in which they did not lose a single man, Cloud9 got out to a quick 3-0 lead. CLG then won the opening gun round thanks to James "⁠hazed⁠" Cobb getting the final kill just in the nick of time, but nothing went their way for the rest of the half as Cloud9 took a commanding 14-1 lead.

An A split in the pistol round as Terrorists from Cloud9 proved to be very effective and allowed them to further grow their lead before eventually closing out the game 16-1.

Cloud9	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Jordan 'n0thing' Gilbertn0thing	21 - 8	+13	122.1	100.0%	2.03
Tyler 'Skadoodle' LathamSkadoodle	15 - 7	+8	104.2	100.0%	1.83
Jake 'Stewie2K' YipStewie2K	17 - 7	+10	96.8	100.0%	1.71
Alec 'Slemmy' WhiteSlemmy	16 - 6	+10	77.4	82.4%	1.43
Mike 'shroud' Grzesiekshroud	14 - 11	+3	84.9	88.2%	1.29

CLG	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Stephen 'reltuC' CutlerreltuC	14 - 17	-3	77.1	76.5%	0.96
James 'hazed' Cobbhazed	7 - 16	-9	70.7	58.8%	0.75
Josh 'jdm64' Marzanojdm64	8 - 16	-8	48.0	64.7%	0.53
Jacob 'FugLy' MedinaFugLy	5 - 17	-12	43.7	47.1%	0.34
Tarik 'tarik' Celiktarik	5 - 17	-12	39.4	47.1%	0.33

The match that followed also brought together two top U.S. teams as Liquid locked horns with Selfless on Mirage. Starting off on the CT side of the map, Selfless looked very strong during the opening stages of the half and twice enjoyed a three-round lead, but they ceded more territory as the game more on, allowing Liquid to take a 9-6 lead.

Liquid picked up where they left off and took the first two rounds of the second half to increase their lead to 11-6. A third-round buy from Selfless bore fruits and allowed them to go on a good run, which came to an end when they were just two rounds away from Liquid following a sensational quad kill from Kenneth "⁠koosta⁠" Suen.

koosta powered Liquid against Selfless 

Spencer "⁠Hiko⁠" Martin followed it up with an ace in the B apartment area to put Liquid on the verge of victory. Down 9-14, Selfless called a tactical pause in a bid to discuss their offense, but to no avail as Liquid would soon get 16 rounds on the board.