Vitality eliminate Liquid from EWC after close 2-0

Twistzz's heroics were not enough as Liquid's second match against Vitality in five days ended with the same result.

Vitality have eliminated Liquid from Esports World Cup after a scrappy two-map series, barely staving off a comeback from 9-3 up on Mirage (13-11) before prevailing in double overtime on Dust2 (19-16) to take the series over the line.

It was a rematch of a battle that took place just five days ago at BLAST Bounty Season 2 Finals, where Vitality emerged the victors after two overtime maps, but featured an entirely different veto as Liquid picked Mirage instead of Train and Vitality opted for Dust2 over Nuke.

Liquid were left looking the fool for picking Mirage in the first half, unable to penetrate past a stalwart defense from Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut and Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool. A miserable CT side from Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan (0.37 rating, -7.43% Round Swing) mattered little as he was carried by 2.34 and 2.05-rated showings by the aforementioned duo to the tune of a 9-3 half, with Liquid only cobbling together a third thanks to a quad-kill from Roland "⁠ultimate⁠" Tomkowiak.

Liquid's map pick started to make more sense after the halftime break with Guy "⁠NertZ⁠" Iluz powering up on the defense, finding impact from Connector and in tadem on A with Kamil "⁠siuhy⁠" Szkaradek to shut down uninspired attacks by Vitality.

The game started to slide out of control for Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire's men, akin to their last two LAN outings on Mirage where they recorded singular T round wins against The MongolZ and MOUZ, and Liquid were suddenly in the lead, 10-9, after winning seven straight.

A ZywOo triple out Middle, after a brief tech pause to swap William "⁠mezii⁠" Merriman's PC, finally put a halt to that streak, and despite Liquid answering back in the next, Vitality stabilized. They won the next two to hit map point and recovered a 3v4 in round 24 after NertZ went from hero to zero, missing a spray on a back-turned flameZ in Underpass to let Vitality scrape a 13-11 victory.

Liquid struggled to quell a far better T side from Vitality early doors on Dust2, trading back for two rounds at the start of the map while flameZ and ropz combined to put Vitality upon six.

An adjustment to fight up Catwalk paid dividends for Liquid, and that, paired with two double kill rounds from NertZ, brought the deficit down to just two rounds at the break.

It seemed all for naught as Liquid were put on the ropes almost immediately in the second half, with flameZ, mezii, and ropz all finding multi-kills. The Brit stood tall in a solo defense of B with a stellar triple kill to set Vitality on map point, and it looked as if Liquid were headed for a quick execution before a Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken quad-kill and 1v2 resuscitated his team.

The 25-year-old then combined with Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic to pull back a 3v5 against a half-buy, which proved to be the only round that Vitality had a look-in during a six-round streak by Liquid that helped them force overtime.

Twistzz continued to shine for Liquid in the extra set of rounds, which they started by winning the first two rounds before being put on the back foot by a triple kill round from ZywOo and excellent entries from flameZ.

A 4k from Twistzz pushed the game to a second overtime, but it was there that Liquid fell flat. apEX and mezii pulled back a 2v3 to get Vitality an early round before multis from flameZ and ZywOo set their side on match point, with ropz closing things out by single-handedly shutting down B with a 4k.