M80 beat Liquid to qualify for EWC; MIBR through from South America

20-4-2024 09:31

Liquid's struggles against M80 in North American qualifiers continue as they miss out on a spot at the $1 million event.

Liquid faltered again in a domestic qualifier despite their promising showing at IEM Chengdu

M80 and MIBR are the next two teams locked in to participate in the Esports World Cup, taking place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from mid-July, after winning their respective qualifiers in North and South America.

The North American side secured their spot after beating Legacy in their debut with Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip as a stand-in and Liquid in a rematch from the qualifier's upper final, where Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller & co. had come back from a horrid loss on Mirage to win the series 2-1.

The second time around, M80 learned from their previous loss on Anubis to clinch the win in two maps after repeating a dominant 13-2 victory on Mirage, where Mario "⁠malbsMd⁠" Samayoa starred with 152 ADR a 2.56 rating.

M80 had been a bane of Liquid's existence ever since the team around cadiaN was put together, having come out on top of their previous two encounters in North American qualifiers.

Date	Matches
Esports World Cup 2024 North America Closed Qualifier
18/04/2024	M80 Finished 2:0 Elevate	Match
19/04/2024	M80 Finished 1:2 Liquid	Match
19/04/2024	M80 Finished 2:1 Legacy	Match
20/04/2024	Liquid Finished 0:2 M80	Match

Over in South America, three of the four teams were playing the closed qualifier while in the middle of their campaign at the delay-filled Global Esports Tour Rio, MIBR, Imperial and paiN.

Raphael "⁠exit⁠" Lacerda's team triumphed after dominating Imperial and beating paiN twice, the second time in a deciding match that finished well past midnight and just hours after MIBR sent FURIA packing from the Rio tournament.

Date	Matches
Esports World Cup 2024 South America Closed Qualifier
19/04/2024	MIBR Finished 2:1 paiN	Match
19/04/2024	Imperial Finished 0:2 MIBR	Match
20/04/2024	MIBR Finished 2:0 paiN	Match

The updated team list for the Esports World Cup looks as follows:

EU Qualifier

OCE Qualifier

-cadian +jame

2024-04-20 09:32

1 reply

GOOD teams already qualified... Sad that this could be a REAL WORLD CUP instead... but at least its a good money good teams tourney

2024-04-21 00:41

LULQUID -zews -YEKINDAR or disband

2024-04-20 09:34

This is what Twitstz left Faze for? Career suicide. Yekindar went 28-57 vs M80 in 2 series and just needs cut.

2024-04-21 02:52

HAHHAHAHHA

yekindar is the problem

always was

2024-04-21 04:29

M80 > Liquid :D

LMAO xD

2024-04-20 09:33

tier 2 cs from liquid lets gooooooo see you in cct!

-yekindar already lol

2024-04-20 09:35

tier 5 cs

2024-04-20 09:37

kekindar ruins liquid

2024-04-20 09:40

I cannot wait for 2025 - then those teams like Liquid will stop getting slots inside important event - cuz Valve block of franchise leauges. Lets face it - if not to franchise leauges in last year - we would not see Liquid anywhere outside of open and closed qualifiers XD

2024-04-20 09:42

5 replies

We wouldn't see them in any big tournament in a while. +1

2024-04-20 13:02

2025 is next year, wtf.

2024-04-20 17:04

reall? i did not noticed

2024-04-20 17:11

you would never have any polish representation then either xD

2024-04-20 19:44

you know what is the difference? I am not mad that we dont have proper polish team since 2018 + we dont have any org with deep pockets to buy slot in events like Liquid does soo yea ;D keep foaming

2024-04-20 19:51

hahaHA

2024-04-20 09:51

Should have stayed with the old timers at FaZe, mr. Van Dulken.

2024-04-20 09:45

4 replies

ye, he jumped ship too early when he thought gamesquare or w/e was gonna dissolve faze... pretty dumb in hindsight :(

2024-04-20 10:09

2 replies

His contract effectively ended and Faze didn't offer a new one immediately. It took a month for them to respond to him and by then he was already getting ready to join Liquid. In an interview with HLTV he said "I feel like it got sparked because of a lack of willingness by FaZe to start negotiations" and that "my contract was basically already ended by the time negotiations came around. Sometime in September my contract term technically did end." He went further on to say "There was a lack of communication for about a month ... I told FaZe, 'Man, I have team offers coming in, I need to know what's happening. Am I still here or what?' By the time there was an answer, I was already in pretty deep talks with Vitality and Liquid." Source: hltv.org/news/37723/exclusive-twistzz-on.. So in that situation his contract had run out, Faze could potentially not exist depending on how gamesquare handled the acquisition, and he got no word from them while other teams were reaching out. Knowing how it turned out, yeah it can seem dumb, but it was a very rational decision in that moment. If you think about hindsight all the time then every roster move could be considered dumb.

2024-04-20 19:04

Oh for sure, I agree.

2024-04-23 09:03

faze was absolute cheeks at the end of csgo, it was logical for him to leave

2024-04-20 20:08

Germens too strong

2024-04-20 09:47

nt Liquid, next time better

2024-04-20 10:03

bruh

Disband

2024-04-20 10:13

So M80 lose one match and they qualify, Liquid lose one match and they don't. Wtf lol.

2024-04-20 10:17

M80 had to play more matches through the lower bracket

2024-04-20 10:45

man finds out what a double elim bracket is (even though i do agree being lower bracket should be punished a bit harder)

2024-04-20 14:14

I know what it is, it's just a brainless format when you have low amount of teams like in this case

2024-04-20 15:19

I think they're punished in map veto, NO?

2024-04-20 22:23

m80 3-2 liquid

2024-04-20 17:36

Twistzz emotional and deep thinking guy, reasons for him leaving were reasonable. But never leave clear waters for unknown territory. I do think liquid will bounce back, but these underperformances are eating out the clock big time, yekindar seems far too inconsistent and the plays which worked out for him in Csgo aren’t having the same impact in 2.

2024-04-20 10:20

3 replies

"But never leave clear waters for unknown territory." maybe he is an adventurer? what would humanity be without them?

2024-04-20 10:22

It was obviously a business decision.

2024-04-20 13:22

I imagine the tournament winnings sticker money etc are out weighing liquid salary. But he made his decision before Faze started winning or coming 2nd at every event so understandable.

2024-04-20 17:33

Shocking

Not really m80 has been beating liquid ever since this new roster got formed

2024-04-20 15:14

Lol. That is all.

2024-04-20 10:46

yekindar not benched yet lul

2024-04-20 11:01

Yikes...this is just a bad outlook for the Liquid players - losing to teams they should be beating.

2024-04-20 11:07

imagine not being able to go through NA qualifiers.....

2024-04-20 11:08

the only russian in the qualifer failed xd

2024-04-20 14:18

so?

2024-04-20 14:26

#28

2024-04-20 14:59

how 1 random russian in na team have anything to do with liquid not being able to go through na quals?

2024-04-20 15:49

lulquid going from almost beating faze in a bo3 to this haha

2024-04-20 11:13

M80 is team liquid father

2024-04-20 11:59

online is online

We are not watching this event then

2024-04-20 12:05

Imagine leaving faze for this

2024-04-20 13:05

Malbs 😀😀😀

2024-04-20 13:07

Kick kekindar and zews. I just don't see cadiaN and zews working well together

2024-04-20 13:16

Lets go s1n!

2024-04-20 13:28

YEKINDER_IS_OVERRATED

2024-04-20 14:07

twistzz left faze for THIS? x) lmao mate... should have stayed in europe

2024-04-20 15:20

Lmao

2024-04-20 15:25

This makes me so unbelievably happy

2024-04-20 16:58

Not sure who wanted ELiGE gone, but hopefully it wasnt Yekindar... Lets just say that.

2024-04-20 17:02

my speculation is that elige just had enough of playing with yekindar (who was never going to leave)

2024-04-21 02:59

-yekindar PLEASE' LULQUID WAKE UP, BENCH HIM PLEASE

2024-04-20 17:06

"Liquid struggles" It was 0-2, liquid got their asses handed to then

2024-04-20 17:07

"Liquid's struggles against M80"

2024-04-20 17:20

I need a drink. No kidding, thanks for correcting me

2024-04-20 17:21

This is just hilarious at this point

Liquid moment

Skulls and Yekindar both need the boot soooo hard. I haven’t witnessed a single game with either of them not at the dead bottom of the scoreboard

2024-04-20 17:57

Typical Liquid things

2024-04-20 19:15

This is how you elegantly dodge the "Saudi issue".

2024-04-20 22:39

Hope Twistzz does not regret leaving FaZe...

2024-04-21 09:13

M80 beat Liquid to qualify for EWC; MIBR through from South America

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