Liquid and LOUD survive decider matches to make their way into the playoffs

On the first map of the match, Haven, Liquid showed collaboration. With the exception of Elias "Jamppi" Olkkonen's 29 kills during the map, the EMEA team seemed to be operating like machine. The majority of rounds couldn't be attributed to the efforts of a single player because every other team member's K/D was comparable. Paper Rex appeared to have enough momentum to win the map going into overtime, but Liquid finally won because of a miss from Aaron "mindfreak" Leonhart in the overtime rounds.

Pearl moved far more quickly and in Paper Rex's favor. Since they chose the map, it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that they almost defeated Liquid, who probably didn't have time to prepare it between the conclusion of the EMEA Last Chance Qualifier and the start of Champions. With a final score of 13-4, Ascent was used for the third map in this match. For Paper Rex, Ascent got off to a fantastic start, but after the second round the team began to struggle. After that, Liquid defeated Paper Rex in eight straight rounds, giving them an 8-4 lead at the break. Prepared to strike the final blow after this half-time score, Liquid managed to defeat Paper Rex 13:8 on the final map Ascent.

In the first round of the playoffs, Liquid will face OpTic Gaming from North America on September 10.

VCT 2022 - Champions Istanbul

Paper Rex

1

X

2

Team Liquid

Group A - Decider Match, Best of 3 - September 7, 2022 - 2:00PM

13

Haven

15

13

Pearl

4

8

Ascent

13

Paper Rex

player

Rating

ACS

K/D/A

+/-

K/D

KAST

ADR

HS%

FBSR

FB

FD

d4v41

1.05

194

43/42/33

+1

1.02

81.4%

126.8

19%

33%

2

4

Jinggg

1.03

234

55/51/8

+4

1.08

64.8%

159.2

22%

58%

11

8

f0rsakeN

1.02

220

50/48/8

+2

1.04

65.2%

133.4

36%

42%

11

15

mindfreak

0.80

172

36/41/20

-5

0.88

76.3%

115.2

25%

38%

3

5

Benkai

0.79

159

37/46/20

-9

0.80

75.9%

108.2

28%

29%

2

5

Team Liquid

player

Rating

ACS

K/D/A

+/-

K/D

KAST

ADR

HS%

FBSR

FB

FD

Jamppi

1.29

276

65/42/8

+23

1.55

75.1%

176.0

24%

63%

12

7

Nivera

0.99

195

45/48/20

-3

0.94

70.4%

128.9

30%

67%

8

4

ScreaM

0.98

216

46/42/16

+4

1.10

73.9%

148.8

27%

48%

10

11

dimasick

0.83

158

38/44/20

-6

0.86

71.6%

98.2

40%

63%

5

3

soulcas

0.65

130

34/45/15

-11

0.76

71.6%

98.3

32%

33%

2

4

The squad immediately locked in a double-duelist configuration when playing the ZETA map choice of Bind. Early on in the VCT last year, these kinds of compositions were popular with aggressive teams, but as of late, the majority of meta selections have instead included two controllers or two sentinels. The scoreboard at the half was very even at 7-5. LOUD had the advantage in the rifle rounds, thus ZETA took the pistol and the round after it for their defense before squabbling. Due to Dep's aggressive play, ZETA was able to stabilize despite being down two rounds at the break. It was obvious that the team had a strategy for using the two duelists, but LOUD was frequently able to fend off this aggressiveness. For LOUD, Erick "aspas" Santos continually stepped up, comfortably defeating Tenta "TENNN" Asai in the Raze head-to-head. ZETA put up a fight, but LOUD won Bind 13-11 in a lot closer map than they did the last time these two teams faced off.