Liquid survive scare with a 2-1 victory over Spirit
The opening game of Group B saw an upset with FaZe losing to GamerLegion, and we almost saw a second as Spirit with their coach in the server pushed the new Liquid team to their limits.
Miss out on the action? Don't worry, we've got you covered to take you through all the key moments.
Map one - Nuke (Spirit's pick)
Kicking us off on Nuke with a pistol round win, you'd have been forgiven for thinking it might be plain sailing for Liquid as they played a weakened Spirit side - but you couldn't have been more wrong.
The Russian team responded immediately as soon as they brought rifles out, although NAF then mopped up on the A site to keep the game in Liquid's favour.
Rounds were traded back and forth from that point onwards, with both teams being forced to save repeatedly thanks to brute force executions from strong T sides.
sh1ro had a quiet map up until overtime, but he woke up in time to hit this sick clip.
It proved to be too little, too late though, and Liquid took map one with a 16-14 scoreline.
Map two - Anubis (Liquid's pick)
With Liquid taking Spirit's map, everything was set up for them to take the series 2-0 - but things don't always turn out the way they're planned, do they?
Liquid started strong, once again winning on their CT pistol, but the half became a whitewash as Spirit gained an economic advantage.
The Russian team won eight rounds in a row, and academy talent baz was on fire.
Twistzz would refuse to go down without a fight though, and he demolished Spirit's A exec on round 12.
The Canadian's heroics weren't enough, however, and Spirit quickly got themselves into a map winning position. Once they got there, it was down to zont1x to end Anbuis in style.
Map three - Ancient (Decider)
With the series rather unexpectedly going to a third map, it was only fitting that the third map would be a banger - we got off to a good start too, check out the chaos of the opening round:
Once again it was Spirit who were dominating early proceedings, and sh1ro and chopper were in fine form, they combined for 33 kills to keep Liquid's T side at bay, even managing to win this round while three of their players only had USPs.
With the score 9-3 at the half, Liquid needed to win their CT pistol round, and they pulled it off with a full ten second defuse.
They kept fighting, skullz and NAF combined for 26 kills to limit Spirit to just one T side round and take the map and series 13-10.
What's next for the two teams?
Liquid will now play GamerLegion for a spot in the Group Final, while Spirit will have to face FaZe to keep their Spring Final hopes alive.
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