Liquid narrowly avoid defeat against visa-affected Spirit

The new Liquid project required a decider, where at one point they were down 9-3, to beat a donk-less Spirit.

"Finally, on the NA side, I can actually use the [jetlag excuse]," Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller joked before Liquid scraped past Spirit (Nuke 16-14, Anubis 10-13, Ancient 13-10).

His new Liquid lineup came into BLAST Spring Groups late after playing the IEM Chengdu qualifier — where they lost to M80 in the final — in the United States, but few would have expected them to struggle so much against a Spirit side forced to utilize Oleg "⁠baz⁠" Kulynych and Sergey "⁠hally⁠" Shavaev instead of Boris "⁠magixx⁠" Vorobiev and superstar Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets.

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What followed was a valiant effort from Leonid "⁠chopper⁠" Vishnyakov and company, as Spirit reminded the world of the quality they possess even without donk on the server.

Marquee signing Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov, on a LAN debut of his own, was slow to get going on Nuke before coming alive and dominating proceedings on Anubis and the first half of Ancient as he put a visibly unpracticed Liquid to the sword.

Down 9-3 on the deciding map of Ancient, however, Liquid finally rallied to show their true selves as they put together a streak of eight CT rounds to save the series.

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"It's easy to judge us in the first week, the first month, but it's a long journey," cadiaN continued pre-game. "Expectations are high, but understand now, that it's a lot of different CS schools merging into one. There's no doubt that the skill is there, the personalities are there."

The ambitious world-wide project will now face GamerLegion for a place in the group final, while Spirit drop to the lower bracket, where the frightening prospect of facing FaZe awaits.

Date	Matches
BLAST Premier Spring Groups 2024
25/01/2024	GamerLegion 12:00 Liquid	Match
25/01/2024	FaZe 13:55 Spirit	Match

Liquid kicked off proceedings with a flawless pistol round on Nuke, but their good spirits did not last long as Spirit caught off Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic on Ramp before putting together several first-class Upper executes to end the half with an above-par five round tally.

The Russian side accelerated to a 12-10 lead as the sides flipped, and the difference in practice was obvious as Liquid's Upper executes faltered due to an inability to even get out of the Squeaky door.

At crunch time, however, Liquid's superior individuals came alive with Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis and Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken — who ended the map with 25 headshot kills — finding impact to save the map and somehow snatch Spirit's pick 16-14.

If that result was supposed to put Spirit in their place, it did not have the desired effect as chopper's men responded by racing to an 8-2 lead on Liquid's pick of Anubis.

A flashy Twistzz triple kill on the secondary AWP could have resuscitated Liquid, but the Canadian's adrenaline-fuelled decision to go through the smoke handed the round back to Spirit in a round that summarised the gaps in the fresh-faced lineup's game.

The six-round deficit at half-time proved too much to climb for Liquid, who slumped to a 10-13 defeat as they somehow found themselves facing a decider against a coach and a stand-in.

Still reeling, Liquid entered Ancient in the same vein, and Spirit kept the pressure on off the back of some incredible fragging from chopper and sh1ro.

Liquid struggled to get control of the B Lane in particular, with baz and chopper combining to throttle their defaults and end the half with a 9-3 lead once again. Liquid were four rounds away from a lower-bracket elimination game against FaZe.

This was the moment, though, that Liquid flipped the script — but, even then, it easily could have gone wrong. cadiaN's 10-second defuse, with two Spirit players not peeking, saved the second pistol round, and only a Felipe "⁠skullz⁠" Medeiros 1vs2 clutch in the anti-eco ensured they maintained the economic advantage for their CT half.

Those two rounds proved crucial as Liquid kept their heads up and finally put together a streak of their own, recovering from 3-9 down to 11-9 up as their individual ability shone through. From there, there were no more twists as Liquid closed the map out 13-10 and series 2-1.