Apeks stepped onto the stage against much more experienced competition and outmuscled Team Liquid to move on to face Vitality.
Team Liquid looked shellshocked on Ancient and never truly recovered in front of the Paris crowd as kyxsan and his boys levelled up in the biggest game of some of their budding careers.
jL suggests the pressure on stage isn't all that bad.
"To be honest, I felt like it would have more of a major impact on how I feel, but I didn't feel pressured at all."
jkaem was proud of his teammates who hadn't had the experiences he's had and the way they played today.
"Even the players that haven't played on a big stage delivered like crazy today."
What went wrong for Team Liquid? Well, that'd be a whole article in itself; but we've got a couple of theories from the Apeks players.
jkaem said the game went "as expected", and gave a lot of credit to the pre-game preparation.
"We had prepared so hard for Liquid, and we had every counter that it was possible to have."
jL, meanwhile, seems to think it was as much on Liquid as it was their own preparation.
"They were playing too calculated on both maps, and I think that cost them."
Apeks came out of the blocks swinging and flew into an insurmountable lead on their T side to kick off Ancient.
Team Liquid found no answers for the Apeks default and lost too much map control consistently - most notably when STYKO tiptoed through A Main and into CT Spawn to decapitate both A defenders and put the round on a silver platter for his teammates.
Liquid lost rounds with man advantages consistently as Apeks picked holes in their defence over and over again.
After an eleven round T side, it was merely a matter of time before Apeks finished off the game, and though it was a little better from Team Liquid, eventually Apeks broke them with aggression, and looked like they had a much better understanding of Ancient.
That game was characterised by a round where jkaem sprinted up Middle to kill two players outside of B, as kyxsan slid down Ramp to create a pincer.
He ended up fighting NAF in CT Spawn at 1:30. Wild.
"Ancient I think we had it in the bag, easy. Super simple. We felt like we were ahead the whole time. They were kind of playing their game, but we anti-stratted really well."
jL sounded like he'd just finished practice, rather than coming off stage.
Apeks once again flew out of the blocks and grabbed double figures on their CT side - despite YEKINDAR's best efforts.
YEKINDAR found a ridiculous number of opening kills but was met by a wave of multikills from young IGL kyxsan on the other side - who had quite possibly the best half of Counter-Strike he's ever played.
And what a time to do it.
The North Macedonian collected 23 kills on the CT side and it really felt like he could do no wrong. Even when he overpeeked, he would trade his own death with a molotov. Every nade hit, every flash blinded Liquid players, and every bullet connected.
Their T side was a bit slower to get started, but eventually Apeks found some success with constant B hits through Monster and were able to halt Liquid's momentum with a couple of clutches.
The finest of those was a dirty 1v3 from nawwk on the rifle, where the first displayed his spray control, the second his crosshair placement and the final kill his composure, as he headshotted the final Liquid retaker with his sole remaining bullet.
Apeks found the holes in the Liquid defence and exploited them just in time, and grabbed themselves a much-deserved 2-0 win.
Apeks head on towards Vitality tomorrow, which gives them a chance to silence the crowd.
jkaem didn't sound stressed by the idea, but he did say that "it's going to be crazy for sure. That crowd is going to be fucking wild."
jL, meanwhile, doesn't seem bothered at all.
"It's just a game man. You play the game."
Yeah. Fair enough.
When we asked him about playing against Vitality as huge underdogs, he just replied nonchalently.
"Liquid were also favourites. I'm just saying."
He's not worried, it's fair to say.
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