The fourth edition of the BLAST Pro Series in 2019 ended with Team Liquid beating the competition and finally clinching a BLAST Pro title. The BLAST Pro Los Angeles champions finished the event undefeated to win the fourth LAN event in a row.
Group Stage – the domination of Team Liquid
Team Liquid just cruised through the Group Stage of BLAST Pro Los Angeles proving that their struggle with Best-of-1 matches has ended. In the opening round, Liquid managed to beat Cloud9 in a convincing manner on Inferno. Team Liquid, who appeared in Los Angeles with new jerseys and slightly different Logo, won the first half on T side with decent lead (9-6).
Although this result was recoverable, the new Cloud9 roster managed to win only two rounds in the second half. Hence, the final score was 16-8 for the BLAST Pro Los Angeles Champions. NAF played an incredible game as he ended up with 27 frags, 8 assists, and 121 ADR.
In the following round, Team Liquid played almost an identical match against NRG on Overpass. This time, however, Liquid began on CT side and NRG was the team with lead at the beginning (3-0). Nevertheless, after losing the first three rounds, Liquid won seven in a row when they finally had a full buy. The first half finished in Liquid’s favor with minimal lead (8-7). But, just like Cloud9, NRG also barely won two rounds in the second half. Liquid proved once again their T-side on Overpass is just brutal.
NRG didn’t have a solution for Liquid’s great game and the match ended with a scoreline 16-9. On top of all NRG’s problems, nitr0 was pulling out some incredible plays such as his jumping quad-kill with AWP in the 10th round.
Liquid beat MiBR and dismantled FaZe on Nuke
BLAST Pro Los Angeles champions continued their great run against MiBR and FaZe Clan. Firstly, Team Liquid met MiBR on Mirage and that game almost finished in the same way as Liquid’s game against FaZe later on. Although they lost the first pistol round, Liquid managed to win force-buy round to establish themselves in the first half quickly. On the wings of that win, Liquid ended the first half on T side in a dominant fashion (11-4).
In the following round, however, FaZe Clan didn’t manage to avoid disaster against the best team in the world. The game took place on Nuke, and after first eight rounds, the score was very favorable for FaZe Clan. They split the opening eight rounds with Liquid on T side, which is considered to be kind of small achievement due to the fact that Nuke favors CT side. Nevertheless, FaZe didn’t win a single round later on. Liquid won 12 rounds in a row to humiliate FaZe Clan on one of their worst maps. NAF again played extraordinarily well as he had a score 23/7/9 and 126 ADR.
In the last round of Group Stage, Liquid had a chance to play Vertigo against Renegades. BLAST Pro Los Angeles champions concluded the first day in a style as they edged out Renegades with scoreline 16-11.
MiBR performed badly, Cloud9 made Play-offs
Among other results, the most interesting ones were linked to MiBR and Cloud9. These two teams came to Los Angeles after their roster saw some significant changes. Whereas MiBR changed only one, but a very valuable player, Cloud9 shuffled almost the entire roster.
After rumors that coldzera is going to part ways with MiBR, the Brazilian team indeed benched the best player of 2017 and 2016. As they couldn’t find an appropriate replacement in time, MiBR was forced to play BLAST Pro Los Angeles with their coach, zews. Interestingly enough, zews wasn’t the worst player for MiBR in all matches. However, we still could tell how drastically MiBR’s level of the game dropped. Truly, they kicked off the event in the best possible way as they defeated Renegades (16-14), but the rest of the event wasn’t that good for them.
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In the following round, they drew the game versus Cloud9. Later on, they lost all three remaining games to Liquid (16-11), NRG (16-10) and FaZe (16-14). Although all these results look very close, the truth is that MiBR was in an inferior position most of the time. As a result, they failed to reach Play-offs as they ended the group in fifth place.
On the other side, Cloud9, who changed all their players except autimatic, managed to advance further. They lost to Liquid and Renegades, but upset FaZe and drew the games with NRG and MiBR. It was sufficient for them to finish the group as the fourth team and, according to the new format, to secure a spot in Semi-final. They were joined by FaZe (2nd place) and NRG (3rd place), whereas Renegades ended the group at the bottom with a single victory.
Semi-finals
The Semi-finals featured two very one-sided series. In the first Semi-final, eventual BLAST Pro Los Angeles champions faced Cloud9. The first leg started off on Mirage where Cloud9 couldn’t stand a chance versus Intel Grand Slam Season 2 winners. Liquid had an amazing half on T side (11-4), and Cloud9 couldn’t do much to prolong the game in the second half, although they did win the opening three rounds. Nonetheless, the ending score was 16-8 in Liquid’s favor.
The second map almost turned out to be a big choke of Team Liquid. The best team in the world just dominated autimatic and co. on T side on Inferno (13-2). It looked like it was going to be another humiliating loss for Cloud9. However, when teams switched sides, Cloud9 started winning the rounds in a row, and eventually, they almost equalized the score. However, Liquid managed to put the game to bed as they won the last of 30 rounds to finish the game with scoreline 16-14.
On the other side, FaZe Clan appeared to have even easier job against NRG Esports on Train and Nuke. The first map, Train, again proved how CT-sided it is. FaZe kicked off on CT side and conceded a single round in the first half. The scoreline looked devastating for the North American team. They succeeded in closing a gap a little bit, but the full comeback was a very long shot for them. Hence, the first map ended in FaZe’s favor (16-7). On the second map, NiKo carried his team to victory with 33 frags, 3 assists, and 110 ADR.
A rematch of the Grand Final in Miami – unfortunately for @FaZeClan, they didn’t make it this time around.
They gave it EVERYTHING, and showed us what they really are made of 💪
We hope you enjoyed it here in #LosAngeles 🇺🇸#BLASTProSeries #FrontRow pic.twitter.com/jN9HF6VrLv
— BLAST Pro Series (@BLASTProSeries) July 15, 2019
After successful half on T side (8-7), FaZe Clan finished the easier part of the job on CT side to beat NRG and book a meeting with Team Liquid in another BLAST Pro Series Grand Final.
Team Liquid got their revenge
The last time Liquid faced FaZe Clan in BLAST Pro Series Grand Final, the European team completely outplayed nitr0 and co. and clinched the title in Miami in front of Liquid’s crowd. This time, however, Team Liquid managed to get their revenge on home soil versus FaZe Clan. Before the Grand Final started, fans had a chance to watch Pro-Standoff Showmatch between MiBR and Renegades. In this Showmatch for $20,000, Renegades won more individual duels (3-2), but MiBR had more total kills (28-26).
Therefore, Brazilians didn’t leave Los Angeles completely disappointed as they managed to earn an additional $20,000 for the second time in the third Pro-Standoff Showmatch this year. So, they will leave this event with $30,000 in total.
Back to the Grand Final, Team Liquid convincingly bested FaZe Clan in straight maps. This time, Liquid was the team in full control of the game throughout the whole match. The Grand Final kicked off on Nuke, FaZe’s map pick. However, they quickly regretted picking Nuke as eventual BLAST Pro Los Angeles champions dominated them on CT side (11-4). FaZe didn’t give up despite the fact Liquid had six map points, but their effort was in vain in the end. Team Liquid stepped in Grand Final with one map advantage (16-13).
Liquid clinched BLAST Pro Series Los Angeles and took $125,000 home. NAF took an MVP award for his great game throughout the whole event. This is Liquid fourth title in a row and sixth title in total this year. Also, this is Liquid’s first BLAST Pro title after two lost Grand Finals.
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