Vitality knock Liquid out in last-place

Liquid have now lost their last six best-of-three series.

Vitality have progressed to World Final's quarter-finals, consigning Liquid to a last-placed finish in the process.

Like day one against G2, Liquid started well and won map one, their pick of Anubis, comfortably but the wheels fell off on Dust2 (3-13) and Nuke (11-13) to leave Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken's side winless in best-of-threes in October.

Liquid's run, of six consecutive BO3 defeats, has come against top opposition — FaZe and Vitality twice, Natus Vincere, and G2 — but Liquid will head into the Major cycle disappointed that they have not cracked what increasingly looks like a glass ceiling against top teams.

"It's just a fucking disappointment," Twistzz told James "⁠BanKs⁠" Banks on stream post-game. "There's no connection at all on CT Dust2, just a lot of individual plays. Maybe it's bad leadership from me but typically CT side is a team effort. It's disheartening when people are not playing for each other 100%."

On the RMR, which Liquid will prepare for with a bootcamp in Asia, Twistzz was even more frank: "Well, now we have more fucking time after getting knocked out of another event. If we can't do things right at the next one, then... it's rough. It just sucks that we can't replicate these results from practice."

Date	Matches
BLAST Premier World Final 2024
01/11/2024	MOUZ 09:30 Vitality	Match

Vitality, meanwhile, put yesterday's loss against Spirit behind them thanks to a much-needed Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan resurgence.

The Israeli spacetaker has been a key player for the squad all year, earning four EVPs and averaging a 1.10 rating, but struggled at IEM Rio (0.94 rating) and entered Singapore with a 8-21 K-D, 0.69 rating, Mirage against Spirit.

It started poorly, with flameZ struggling on the A site on Anubis, but he entered his pre-Rio flow state on Dust2 (15-8, 1.63 rating) and Nuke (22-19, 1.35 rating).

The spotlight has been on Roland "⁠ultimate⁠" Tomkowiak in Liquid after he suffered a drop-off of his own. The Polish AWPer, with his ultra-aggressive sniping style, seemed a revelation during his debut events in tier one.

But as teams have collected data on his favorite moves, he has struggled to adapt and ends the event with a 0.79 rating. His one highlight, a flash of the fast sniping he made his brief trademark, only came in a triple kill where he had missed two straightforward shots seconds before.

Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis, too, could not recover any semblance of form in the series.

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With Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic displaying his usual dominance on the T side of Anubis, however, Liquid did convert their map pick with ease.

Any confidence was then swiftly washed away as flameZ smashed through Liquid's defenses on Dust2. Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut was quiet, ending 7-7, but it didn't matter: Vitality's rifle core, so quiet yesterday, was back. Even stand-in Audric "⁠JACKZ⁠" Jug chipped in with a 1v2.

Nuke was then a summary of Liquid's T side struggles in recent months, where they average a 42.2% win rate against top 20 opposition.

They mustered just four rounds all T side, the pistol round (a 3v5), the anti-eco (a 4v5), and a surprise Upper pop. In the defaults, they were routinely eliminated by a high-flying flameZ with ZywOo back to his best.

In the second half, ZywOo clutched up 1v3 despite starting the round full-eco with zero armor to put Vitality 11-6 up, inches away from securing playoffs.

Justin "⁠jks⁠" Savage fired up a chance for a comeback with a sweet triple in Secret and Liquid brought it all the way to 11-12 — only for an unlikely hero in the form of JACKZ to make a double entry triple-kill in round 24 for the map and the series.