Liquid move on to DH Masters grand final over 100 Thieves on the back of standout EliGE performance

Liquid will rematch FURIA in the DreamHack Masters Spring - North America title decider after taking down 100 Thieves in the consolidation final.

The North American side has earned a chance to take on FURIA for the second time at the tournament in the best-of-five grand final, after a group stage series between the two saw the Brazilian side come out on top by a hair's breadth three weeks ago.

Liquid confirmed their dominance over 100 Thieves once again, securing their third 2-0 victory over the Aussie squad in the last three months. Aaron "⁠AZR⁠" Ward's side's decision to let Overpass through instead of Mirage proved unsuccessful, as after an overtime-worthy Vertigo, Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella's team had little trouble finishing off the series with a 16-5 victory on the second map.

100 Thieves opted for a similar strategy they had the previous two times they faced Liquid, picking Vertigo to kick off the series, but just like the previous two times the Aussie side ended up conceding the map despite some bright moments. Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski turned up with an astonishing performance, especially on the defense where he amassed nearly 20 kills in just the first 11 rounds.

Although the North American team dominated much of the half, 100 Thieves managed to scrape through a few individual rounds on the back of plays from Joakim "⁠jkaem⁠" Myrbostad and Sean "⁠Gratisfaction⁠" Kaiwai to end up on six, and after second pistol victory the score was soon even. Liquid sped away again following a few A attacks, but AZR's side didn't take long to tighten up the defense to reach map point at 15-13.

That is when EliGE found his stride again as a triple from him and a 1v1 clutch from Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic pushed the game to overtime, where the former added a couple of more multikills to help edge out the map 19-17.

Liquid then clearly had the upper hand on Overpass — a map 100 Thieves had only recently started to play following the addition of Chet "⁠Chet⁠" Singh. The North American team put together a dominant offense despite a 0-3 start, and when EliGE topped it off with an all-headshot USP ace at the start of the second half the Australian team's fate was sealed.