Liquid to New York semi-finals over G2

Liquid are through to the ESL One New York semi-finals after beating G2 2-0 (Cache 16-5, Inferno 16-13) in Group B's winners' match.

Despite Liquid's eight-map winning streak on Cache, G2 picked the map in the series and it backfired immediately, as the North American side picked up speed from the get-go on the Terrorist side.

G2 grabbed their first in the sixth round, but they were instantly broken by Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic's quad-kill, which led to another streak going the way of Liquid, who only let go of one more round, courtesy of Edouard "⁠SmithZz⁠" Dubourdeaux's triple, before the half ended at 13-2.

The French team gave themselves a sliver of a chance by winning the pistol round, as they successfully faked the A bombsite, and surviving a couple of dangerous anti-halfbuys, with Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon clutching a 1v3 in one of them to get his team up to five rounds.

That was, however, where G2's hopes ended, as Liquid clinched their 14th round and broke their opponents due to the close rounds at the beginning of the half, which allowed them to finish off the opening map at 16-5.

Liquid went on to their map pick, Inferno, with confidence, but they soon found themselves down 0-4 on the Terrorist side after the pistol round and the first gunround, in which Kenny "⁠kennyS⁠" Schrub clutched a 1v2 against low HP opponents, went G2's way.

Liquid found their way to the first two rounds then, but another clutch from kennyS and a quad-kill from SmithZz swung it back in the favor of the French-Belgian side, who extended their lead to 7-2. The remainder of the half was evenly split, with one clutch scenario secured on each side, and the favorites had some catching up to do at 5-10.

And that they did once they won the second-round forcebuy with Epitacio "⁠TACO⁠" de Melo and Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella picking up a two kills each. Despite the deficit, Liquid were in the driving seat and eventually grabbed a lead with seven rounds in a row.

G2 finally found their way to their first gunround win with a simple B attack and repeated it again to regain the lead at 13-12, but another similar approach saw Liquid adjust, with NAF pulling off a quad-kill in the B retake. The Canadian showed up with another great play two rounds later, pushing Liquid over the finish line at 16-13, 2-0.