Liquid march on in Sydney; mousesports knock out BOOT-d[S]

Liquid are through to Group A's upper bracket final at IEM Sydney after beating BIG in two quick maps, while MOUZ made light work of BOOT-d[S] over in the lower bracket.

The main stream series, pitting red-hot favourites Liquid against a BIG side who had pulled off the first upset of the event by defeating MOUZ, began with a dominant start from the North Americans, who ran all over the German defence during the early stages of the half.

BIG got on the board for the first time 11 rounds into the game, but their victory was immediately traded back by Liquid, the Germans' double AWP setup failing to produce any results. The North Americans continued playing at a high pace and brought the scoreline to 12-1 before BIG found some breathing room by securing back-to-back rounds.

Now playing on the offense, Fatih "⁠gob b⁠" Dayik's troops were able to carry the momentum from the end of the first half and bagged a must-needed pistol round after bursting through the Liquid defense on catwalk. BIG also found success in the first gun round with a quick long push, putting some pressure on their opponents for the first time in the game.

It looked like the game could be much closer than expected, but then Liquid tightened up their defense and won four rounds straight en route to a 16-7 finish.

Overpass, the next map, turned out to be just as one-sided as Dust2. BIG were kept on the back foot right from the start and simply could not string rounds together. Liquid, who clutched many situations, once again cruised to a 12-3 lead, and this time there was no response from the Germans in the second half.

Meanwhile on the secondary stream, MOUZ and BOOT-d[S] also played out a one-sided series. The Singaporean side went for a Mirage pick that quickly went awry as they had no response to the pace and power of their opponents, who ran out 16-2 victors.

MOUZ dominated proceedings on their T side on Train, with Özgür "⁠woxic⁠" Eker reaching a 26-5 score and averaging 156 damage per round in his team's 12-3 half. A 1v3 clutch by Benedict "⁠Benkai⁠" Tan allowed BOOT-d[S] to make a slight comeback into the map, but mouz quickly wrapped things up to advance to the next round of the lower bracket.