Liquid to EPL playoffs over Space Soldiers

16-5-2018 21:18

Liquid have guaranteed their place in the ESL Pro League Season 7 Finals playoffs with a 2-0 victory over Space Soldiers.

The series began with Space Soldiers taking control of proceedings on their map pick, Mirage, after a successful T-side pistol that they followed up with a sloppy anti-eco. But then Epitacio "⁠TACO⁠" de Melo came up huge with an MP9, finding three opponents to halt Space Soldiers.

Space Soldiers rarely found opening-kills from there, and Liquid kept shutting their strategies down. The North Americans simply did not let the Turks gain any momentum, winning 13 rounds in a row to bag an 11-round half-time lead.

Engin "⁠MAJ3R⁠" Küpeli's men did not want to back down from the fight, and winning the second pistol gave them some breathing room. When Liquid secured their 14th round, Ahmet "⁠paz⁠" Karahoca responded with a huge quad-kill with an AWP, inspiring his team to keep on trying to turn the game around. Still, Liquid eventually sealed the deal with nothing but CZs, 16-11.

nitr0's Liquid will take on the winner of SK vs. Astralis for a place in the semis

Liquid's map pick, Inferno, kicked off with Space Soldiers winning yet another pistol round, this time as CTs. Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella and co. did not let their opponents capitalize on that and responded with two rounds of their own, but the Turkish team remained in charge.

Down 2-5, Liquid won two more rounds before Space Soldiers went on to hit 7 rounds. That was when Liquid pulled off their fifth round on a shoddy buy, however, which marked the beginning of a four-round streak that put them in the lead by half-time, 8-7.

Liquid carried that momentum into the second half, which was all about the North Americans, who strung eight rounds together to finish things off, 16-7, and secure a spot in playoffs.

ESL Pro League Season 7 FinalsBest of 3

Space Soldiers

Matchpage

16th May 2018

Liquid

Mirage

Inferno

Space Soldiers	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Ismailcan 'XANTARES' Dörtkardeş XANTARES	40 - 42	-2	87.0	74.0%	1.11
Engin 'ngiN' Kor ngiN	28 - 34	-6	63.8	64.0%	0.89
Çağatay 'DESPE' Sedef DESPE	28 - 37	-9	61.7	60.0%	0.79
Ahmet 'paz' Karahoca paz	26 - 44	-18	57.8	56.0%	0.71
Engin 'MAJ3R' Küpeli MAJ3R	20 - 37	-17	48.1	62.0%	0.69

Liquid	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Epitacio 'TACO' de Melo TACO	41 - 25	+16	79.1	86.0%	1.39
Keith 'NAF' Markovic NAF	41 - 31	+10	103.5	80.0%	1.35
Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken Twistzz	44 - 28	+16	76.5	78.0%	1.22
Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski EliGE	37 - 28	+9	79.0	74.0%	1.22
Nick 'nitr0' Cannella nitr0	31 - 30	+1	73.7	80.0%	1.20

Top5

2018-05-16 21:19

4 replies

expected

2 replies

so ez

2018-05-16 21:20

1 reply

Absolutely expected

2018-05-16 21:27

BOTACO more like GODTACO

2018-05-16 21:23

Niixe

TAQUINHO <3

SS are a bigger dispointment then Mussolini

8 replies

they played with stand-in and only worked for 2 days with him you know that right?

2018-05-16 21:33

7 replies

Win is a win. No one cares.

2018-05-17 01:23

FaZe played with a stand-in and won iem sydney

2018-05-17 02:07

5 replies

2018-05-17 05:33

...forever destroying the standin excuse

2018-05-17 15:48

they brought xist a month ago and started to practice him till iem sydney,ss only had 2 days

2018-05-17 18:32

They bought xizt in less than a week to compete for iem katotwice,faze manage to get to playoff with a stand-in

2018-05-17 18:33

its faze and all of their player is skilled,space soldiers has only 3 skilled player and they lost 1 of them,also they are playing teamgame mostly and after fail to attemp at iem sydney they lost their mental. if you watch their faces they all feel bored and tired. also its pretty fun that you compare space soldiers with faze,space soldiers is tier 2 and faze is top 3 team. also still they had more time to play with xist. +++ despe is going to university his not playing csgo that much. i mean there is lot of reason why ss sucked at pro league. but i believe they will be better at future events

2018-05-17 18:37

Liquid won 21/23 CT rounds, thats nuts.

get rekt by taco LUL space kebaps more like online soldiers

2018-05-16 21:21

Wtf taco

TACO > Baitzera. What now?

2018-05-16 21:22

VAMOS VACO

When taco dont need to be the bait...

vamos taco

They got shit on hard.

Taco 1.39 rating PogChamp

3 replies

yeah, he played very well but another thing is SS were just jumping into his crosshair all the time

2018-05-16 21:25

well that a stupid thing to say

2018-05-16 21:48

maybe, but that's how i see it i'm not saying taco was bad because he played great, really nice performance from him but if u watched mirage you would see ss jumping out of b apps right into taco's crosshair one after another and so on

2018-05-16 22:41

2018-05-16 21:24

GOD TACO

Boa taquinho

God job my brother, TACO GOD! We smart, we loyal, we friendly, we are from BRAZIL! Kreygasm

2018-05-16 21:26

7-4 when I checked 7-16 now Nice choke

Going to Playoffs by beating Grayhound and SS..... :D

2018-05-16 21:28

Yeah, because they specifically chose the easiest path. Notice how easy NaVi's path was too. Benefits of getting first in the league

2018-05-16 22:27

+42

2018-05-16 23:02

Yeah well LIQUID came first in the league with only 1 loss all season. They rightly got good seed so their opponents weren't as tough

2018-05-17 01:16

II'm not taking anything away from them, this seeding system is much better than the swiss system for example.

2018-05-17 16:14

SK was the problem 4head

2018-05-16 21:30

TACO TOPFRAG LMAO

2018-05-16 21:31

i love how every spaces hater talks shit about them even tho they played with stand-in haters gonna hate i laugh cause you fake

2018-05-16 21:35

Haters would appear if they won. Lots of people here hate ss for some reason

2018-05-16 22:29

Many euros are very racist against turks. It goes back hundreds of years to the ottomans, and crusades and shit.

2018-05-17 01:17

sad people still live in past

Nice! Good job Liquid.

2018-05-16 21:52

ss haters appeared

2018-05-16 22:01

This is what Taco is like when he's not getting baited by botzera

2018-05-16 22:10

Expected from online soldiers.

2018-05-16 22:15

Kebabs

2018-05-16 22:18

taco > kebab

2018-05-16 22:31

Taco was the problem?

2018-05-16 22:35

TACO > SK

2018-05-16 23:31

It honestly was one of the dumbest moves I've ever seen. I knew as soon as it was announced that it wouldn't work. Honestly, Stewie might just have ended his career.

2018-05-16 23:55

TACO Poggers

2018-05-16 23:56

I wasn't able to watch the game but did Liquid give Taco a different role than he has on SK? I never thought he was suited as an entry fragger, but I see his stats and he had a very good series so I'm just wondering what role he's playing because he is a skilled player with the potential to get better.

2018-05-17 03:03