Grayhound eliminate Liquid from DreamHack Masters Malmö

Grayhound managed a 2-0 victory over Liquid, stopping the North American's streak on Mirage and handing them their first group stage exit since adding Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip.

Grayhound kicked off with a CT pistol round win on Mirage, but no momentum was built as Liquid replied with a force buy which Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken and Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic won in a 2v2. The Australians managed their second soon, but Liquid then started dominating, chaining nine rounds together. Finally, Joshua "⁠INS⁠" Potter stepped up with a triple on the A defense to help his side to their third round.

The final round of the half and the second pistol went Grayhound's way, and what seemed like just a couple of rounds to the board before an inevitable defeat turned into a comeback attempt. Things started getting serious when Christopher "⁠dexter⁠" Nong clutched out a 1v3 on B to give Grayhound their sixth in a row, with Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella and co. only able to get their first CT round as the score was 13-11. As Grayhound swept the next round and Simon "⁠Sico⁠" Williams came up big in a 1v3 clutch, the Australians took the lead and sealed the deal on Mirage with a win in a 3v5, breaking Liquid's 15-map winning streak on Mirage.

On the second map, Nuke, Grayhound won the Terrorist pistol but once again lost to the force-buy, seeing Liquid take the early 3-1 lead. The Australians didn't give up, though, equalizing the score at 3-3 before dropping a round to a couple of saved guns on Liquid. The North American side still struggled to establish themselves as dexter and co. kept on the pressure and made it into the lower bombsite repeatedly.

Liquid managed to get back into it thanks to Stewie2K and NAF, picking up the last two CT rounds and then the T pistol and followups, as well as a 10-8 lead. However, with rifles, Grayhound looked like the dominant team, chaining eight rounds together to close out the map 16-10, eliminating Liquid from the tournament.