The addition of Michael “Grim” Wince has continued to pay off for Liquid as the team eased their way through Group A of DreamHack Open Summer North America, with the new addition shining in his debut against Ze Pug Godz on Saturday before the rest of his team stepped up to bat in their second match against Chaos to earn a spot in playoffs.
Multi-kill rounds from Grim and Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski kicked off Liquid‘s offensive effort on Mirage, with four frags from Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken helping to recover a 2vs5 situation as his team moved up to an 8-2 lead. Chaos tightened up their defenses towards the end of the half, securing five rounds in a row to put themselves within one round of their opponents by the break.
A pistol and ensuing anti-eco victory for Liquid saw the team further extend their lead as the second half got underway. It took a handful of entry kills from Jonathan “Jonji” Carey to get Chaos on the board, allowing them to tie the match at 11-11, but stellar rifling from Twistzz and EliGE kept Liquid in control as they took five rounds straight to close out the map.
Twistzz led the way on Mirage with a 1.52 rating
Chaos seemed set to make Inferno a closer affair as they opened the map with a pistol win, but three Five-Seven frags on the B defense from Grim in the ensuing round quickly swung momentum in the favour of Liquid. The Intel Grand Slam champions pushed up to four rounds before Chaos broke through, Jonji and Joshua “steel” Nissan combining to get their side back in the saddle with five rounds in a row, leading 6-5.
It was the Deagles of EliGE and Keith “NAF” Markovic that ended up putting a halt to Chaos‘ streak, and from there, Jake “Stewie2K” Yip‘s troops took firm control as they locked down the remainder of the map, only conceding two additional rounds in the second half before closing out the series with a 16-8 victory.
Meanwhile, Ze Pug Godz defeated Triumph in the Group A elimination match, pulling off a comeback to take Inferno before conceding a massive 15-3 lead on Mirage, forcing a Vertigo decider. There, Austin “Cooper-” Abadir‘s side got back in the saddle as they crushed any vestiges of hope for Triumph, cruising through the map 16-1 to keep themselves in the running.
Chaos and Ze Pug Godz will face off on Wednesday at 22:00 to determine the second team to advance to the playoffs out of Group A.
