Liquid stun fnatic; to playoffs

Team Liquid are through to the quarter-final of MLG Columbus after defeating fnatic 22-19 on Dust2.

Starting out on the CT side of the map, fnatic got out to a 2-0 lead after executing a great retake on the A site in the pistol round. A third-round buy from Liquid paid dividends thanks to a 1vs2 clutch from Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski, but fnatic rallied back in the following round, which severely hurt the North Americans' economy.

Liquid took a while to build up their bank, but they finally began to string rounds together late in the half, turning a 1-5 deficit into a 10-5 advantage as fnatic seemed to have spiraled into a state of disarray.

Taking advantage of their momentum from the end of the first half, Liquid came out from the break with fire in the belly and stomped fnatic in the pistol round, with Eric "⁠adreN⁠" Hoag getting three kills to his name. However, the home side were unable to build on that as they were punished by an ecoing fnatic side.

fnatic continued grinding out rounds to control the economy, and not even Liquid's double AWP setup was enough to put a halt to the Swedes' incredible run, which saw them restore parity at 11 rounds.

Liquid advance to the playoffs at fnatic's expense

After a highly-contested period in which teams traded round for round, EliGE went huge and put Liquid once again in the lead with an ace, but fnatic quickly regained control of proceedings with a mid-b split and bagged the following two rounds to make it 15-13 in their favour. They were, however, unable to apply the finishing blow as Liquid won the final rounds of the half and forced overtime.

The North American side started the first overtime on the CT side and took a 2-1 lead thanks to key individual actions from EliGE and adreN. Then it was Spencer "⁠Hiko⁠" Martin's time to shine as he single-handedly won the first round on the Terrorist side after the bomb was planted in the B site. Liquid were now on match point but they failed to get the final round, allowing fnatic to equalise the score and take the game to another overtime.

The second overtime followed the same pattern as the first, this time with Liquid claiming a 2-1 lead after playing on the Terrorist side. After swapping sides, fnatic were left frustrated in a catwalk push, and not even a timeout from them, called in desperation, was able to change the tune of the game.

MLG Columbus 2016Best of 1 LiquidMatchpage 22 19 30th March 2016 fnatic 22Dust2 19

Liquid	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostylievs1mple	37 - 27	+10	90.0	1.42
Spencer 'Hiko' MartinHiko	32 - 26	+6	88.7	1.24
Eric 'adreN' HoagadreN	30 - 23	+7	76.5	1.24
Jonathan 'EliGE' JablonowskiEliGE	32 - 24	+8	81.4	1.22
Nick 'nitr0' Cannellanitr0	15 - 28	-13	56.3	0.79

fnatic	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Robin 'flusha' Rönnquistflusha	25 - 26	-1	73.9	1.07
Jesper 'JW' WecksellJW	28 - 30	-2	75.0	1.02
Freddy 'KRIMZ' JohanssonKRIMZ	28 - 27	+1	71.8	1.00
Dennis 'dennis' Edmandennis	28 - 34	-6	77.5	0.94
Olof 'olofmeister' Kajbjerolofmeister	19 - 29	-10	55.0	0.72

Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski Age: 18 Team: Liquid Rating 1.0: 1.06 Maps played: 280 KPR: 0.75 DPR: 0.71 Spencer 'Hiko' Martin Age: 26 Team: Liquid Rating 1.0: 1.12 Maps played: 400 KPR: 0.73 DPR: 0.60 Eric 'adreN' Hoag Age: 25 Team: Liquid Rating 1.0: 0.98 Maps played: 327 KPR: 0.65 DPR: 0.64