【】-farmskins

Liquid secured a 2-1 win over FaZe (Nuke 16-3, Inferno 26-28, Mirage 16-4) in the third place decider match at StarSeries i-League Season 4.

FaZe went for an unconventional pick of Nuke in this series, starting the map as Terrorists. In the pistol round, the Europeans opted for an A site rush, which was quickly denied by Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken who aced FaZe with five USP-S headshots. Off the back of that, Liquid was able to go 3-0, and then extended their lead to 6-1 shortly.

Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen and co. were struggling on the offensive side of the map, with the economy not doing them any favours. After FaZe picked up their second round by taking over A, they were once again replied to instantly by Liquid and forced on another force-buy and then eco before they could buy.

The same continued throughout the half, FaZe were unable to find picks in their buys and Liquid switched sides with a 12-3 lead. Lucas "⁠steel⁠" Lopes opened up the second pistol while Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski and Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic closed it with two kills each, which combined with clean anti-ecos meant that the North American side was on match point before FaZe could buy. With a slow play that started towards B but finished on A in the first gun round, Liquid finished Nuke and took the 1-0 map lead.

Liquid ran over FaZe on Nuke

Inferno started well for Liquid, who kicked off the second map on the CT side as well. Early on, FaZe was closest to winning a round when Ladislav "⁠GuardiaN⁠" Kovács made a 1v3 into a 1v1, but Twistzz managed to shut him down with an HE grenade (4-0).

In another buy round, FaZe took mid control and were getting ready to make a play towards the site when Liquid went for a mid retake, using their economic lead and the plethora of utility to their advantage.

Liquid didn't slow down after that, going up to 12 rounds before a reply from FaZe, with NAF standing out throughout. GuardiaN then opened up on Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella and FaZe took over B to get on the board, while Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard salvaged the followup with an ace-clutch in a 1v3.

The Europeans managed to finish the half with three rounds and start their comeback attempt by securing the CT pistol (12-4). Liquid won the first buy convincingly, but a GuardiaN 3K in the following round stopped them from gaining any momentum and saw FaZe get the score back to 13-9 as the Slovakian sniper secured an anti-eco ace in round 22.

A couple of rounds later GuardiaN secured another ace, this time on a full buy round as Liquid tried to wrap the B site, and FaZe managed to get into the lead and onto match point. Liquid replied, with Twistzz pulling off a magnificent 1v2 to force overtime.

The two teams fought overtime after overtime and the map was finally closed in overtime number four. The score was 28-25 when FaZe were on map point with a 1v3 advantage, but steel clutched the round on B to extend it. However, the map was finalized shortly, as FaZe won the following round to win Inferno and tie the series 1-1.

GuardiaN had a couple of crazy rounds on Inferno

The decider map, Mirage, began with Twistzz picking up a quad-kill in the pistol round to put Liquid in the lead. After buying up, FaZe managed to get a round on the board, but the North Americans quickly regained control of proceedings. For the rest of the half, the rounds edged out by karrigan's side were few and far between, with Liquid cruising to a 12-3 half-time lead.

More misery was heaped on FaZe, who lost the pistol round following a fast B execution from Liquid. A gun round win from FaZe when the North Americans were already on match point merely delayed the inevitable as the finishing blow would come in the next round.

StarSeries i-League Season 4Best of 3 Liquid LiquidMatchpage 2 1 25th February 2018 FaZe FaZe 16Nuke 3 26Inferno 28 16Mirage 4