Liquid, Evil Geniuses secure wins at IEM Katowice to set up upper-bracket matchup

With a 2-1 scoreline, Evil Geniuses managed an opening-series victory over MAD Lions, while Liquid took down Virtus.pro in theirs 2-0.

The two North American sides dispatched with their oposing underdogs in the opening matches in Poland, setting up a regional derby in the group B upper-bracket semi-final of IEM Katowice, which will take place on Wednesday at 19:00 .

The first rifle round on Vertigo went MAD Lions' way and started the Danes' flurry of rounds, equalizing the score at 3-3 after they lost the pistol and followups. After the score was tied, shutting down a 1v2 clutch attempt on B gave Evil Geniuses the momentum and money advantage on the offensive side. The North Americans made the most of it, dealing with MAD Lions' aggressions successfully, and finished the half 11-4 up.

Before the switch, Vincent "⁠Brehze⁠" Cayonte was sitting on 19K-7D, and he showed no signs of slowing down on the CT side of MAD Lions' map pick. His fragging propelled Evil Geniuses to a 14-3 score, closing out the map 16-7 after some resistance from Nicolai "⁠HUNDEN⁠" Petersen's men.

MAD Lions looked much better on Dust2, stabilizing on the CT side after early success from Evil Geniuses. After being down 4-3, Rasmus "⁠sjuush⁠" Beck's triple kill started a chain of five round wins, which included back-to-back triple-kills from HUNDEN. 8-4 down, Brehze and Tsvetelin "⁠CeRq⁠" Dimitrov were catalysts for the comeback before the switch, finding crucial opening kills to switch to CT just one round behind.

The pistol win allowed them to take the lead, but MAD Lions were dominant in the rifle rounds, reaching a 13-10 lead. That is when Evil Geniuses' strong retakes came into play, as they managed to secure four defuses to equalize the score at 14-14. Frederik "⁠acoR⁠" Gyldstrand's entry in the next round got the Danes onto match point and Lucas "⁠Bubzkji⁠" Andersen closed it out, 16-14, with a 1v1 clutch win on A.

Evil Geniuses started the decider, Nuke, dominantly, going 5-0 on the CT side. They were looking to extend the lead to six when acoR showed up with a 1v3 clutch on A, but an additional, HUNDEN 1v2 was needed for the North Americans' economy to be broken.

The Danes managed to finish the half with a respectable, 10-5 scoreline, but couldn't close out the pistol which Ethan "⁠Ethan⁠" Arnold clutched in a 1v3 situation. That was just a continuation of Ethan's impressive play on Nuke, which was instrumental to Evil Geniuses' efforts on the decider map. With a great start on the offense and 1v2 clutch by CeRq, the map was concluded 16-5.

The first half of Vertigo between Virtus.pro and Liquid was a streaky one. Dzhami "⁠Jame⁠" Ali won the 1v2 to clutch the pistol and his team went 3-0 up, only for a four-round streak to follow from Liquid. Virtus.pro again found openings on the offense, but Liquid edged back into the lead before the half time switch.

With the pistol in the bag and playing on the T side (10-7), Liquid was in a good place to take the map, but Virtus.pro players woke up, with each of them having multikill rounds to get back into the lead after an 11-11 tie. The team from Kazakhstan was 14-12 up, but couldn't close it out as Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip's AWP triple on B pushed the game into overtime. In the added rounds, Liquid edged out four rounds to steal away the map pick of their opponents.

Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken's triple handed Liquid the pistol round win on the T side of Mirage, but a quick force-buy reply gave Virtus.pro the early lead on the defense, 4-1. Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski stopped the momentum building with a quad kill in round 5, with the North American team bouncing back to 8-5.

Finishing the half 9-6 up, Liquid were comfortable going into the CT side, even after losing the pistol. Twistzz, who was hot throughout the map, claimed four casualties in the first buy and continued to tear through the opposition for the rest of the map, leading the fragging as his team finished the map 16-9, 2-0 for the series.