New-look Liquid one win away from BLAST Fall Final

The Robert "⁠Patsi⁠" Isyanov and Aleks "⁠Rainwaker⁠" Petrov-infused lineup has picked up a second top-five team scalp at the Fall Groups.

Liquid are now one win away from securing a spot at the BLAST Premier Fall Final after a 2-1 victory over FaZe (Inferno 11-16, Mirage 16-14, Ancient 16-8) put them in the Group C final. They have two chances to qualify for the competition taking place in Copenhagen on November 22-26; their first will come in the final, taking place on Thursday at 18:30 .

The new-look Liquid roster, which underwent the controversial additions of Rainwaker and Patsi over the summer break, now have a second top-five scalp to their name after they previously beat G2 in their first official appearance.

The two new players performed well in Liquid's comeback from their opening Inferno loss. In a game full of big CT side displays, Patsi in particular put up two great defensive performances on Mirage and Ancient to help recover from the series deficit.

"It feels really good playing with Patsi and Rainwaker, they just have a different mindset compared to playing with nitr0 and EliGE," NAF said about his new teammates on the broadcast after the match. "They just seem way more comfortable. When we would come over in the past, we would just feel out of our comfort zone, and we just feel like we are playing a foreign competition that we just don't understand.

"With Patsi, with how much he has been playing, with the Spirit guys, they play all the time, he just has a great understanding of being super aggressive, and we have the polar opposite in Rainwaker, who is really passive, has a great clutching, late-game ability," the Canadian explained.

NAF also spoke about his roles changing as a result of Rainwaker's addition, someone who likes similar positions: "Now I have the option of if I wanna play passive or aggressive. It reminds me of the older years in 2018-2019, having a little bit more freedom, I somewhat feel like more of a star here again."

The now-longest-standing member of the Liquid side put in another team-leading performance in their second series together, with a 1.23 rating across the series. His aggressive flanks on Mirage and overall great play on the CT side there as well as Ancient was one of the keys to Liquid's recovery.

FaZe looked out of their depth outside of Inferno, which Liquid were playing for the first time. Their Terrorist sides let them down in the series as they only picked up four rounds on the offense across Mirage and Ancient.