Liquid, M80 stay alive at Americas RMR

BOSS and Wildcard have ended their Major qualification campaigns after recording their second losses of the tournament.

Liquid and M80 kept themselves alive for the final day of competition at the Americas RMR after their respective victories against BOSS and Wildcard.

Their victories mean that Liquid and M80 enter Monday's 2-1 pool of do-or-die matches, where the three winners will secure spots at the Copenhagen Major.

Liquid, who were relegated to the 1-1 pool after their loss against FURIA, were matched up against BOSS in their first elimination clash. The star-studded lineup was far from their best at the start of the series, as a labored Inferno T side netted them a 6-6 scoreline.

Their CT side started by BOSS converting a 2vs5 situation in the pistol round, but Liquid stabilized to eventually secure the map 13-9. The performance was far from convincing, however, and prompted Jacob "⁠Pimp⁠" Winneche to call it "one of the worst wins he has ever seen from Team Liquid" on the analyst desk.

Ancient was much more straightforward for Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller and company. While they needed Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis and Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken to bail them out in a 2vs4 situation in the second pistol, they won eleven rounds in a row to close out the map without much difficulty and secure their spot in the 2-1 pool.

An encouraging sign for Liquid will be YEKINDAR's return to form. The Latvian superstar averaged a 0.78 rating coming into this game, but looked like himself against BOSS with a 32-20 K-D.

In the B stream game, Wildcard and M80 started their elimination bout on Mirage, where Wildcard won the pistol but were otherwise visibly second-best in the first half. Their A hits didn't find much success, and Mario "⁠malbsMd⁠" Samayoa's aggressive pushes dismantled their default setups, which seemed to be their plan B.

This meant Peter "⁠stanislaw⁠" Jarguz and company didn't find a single opening kill in the entire half and could only muster two rounds. Not much changed after the sides switched either, as a pistol-round victory got Wildcard up to five rounds before they ran out of steam and petered out in a 5-13 loss.

Next up was Vertigo, which went the way of Wildcard. They ended the first half with a two-round deficit but completely flipped the script in the second half, with Aran "⁠Sonic⁠" Groesbeek and Keller "⁠SLIGHT⁠" Nilan finding several gaps in the M80 defense to tie up the series.

Wildcard returned to their Mirage form on the Inferno decider, as they could only amass two T-sided rounds in the first half. Fritz "⁠slaxz-⁠" Dietrich provided an insurmountable obstacle for the stanislaw-led team, with the German sniper's 21 kills and two deaths a testament to that. A second-round pistol was the final nail in the coffin for Wildcard and meant that M80 secured their spots in the 2-1 pool.