Evil Geniuses sweep Liquid in upper semifinals

Evil Geniuses Evil Geniuses North America Rank #29 Derrek Derrek Ha NaturE Nicholas Garrison supamen Phat Le Apoth Vincent Le jawgemo Alexander Mor floated their way to a 2-0 over Team Liquid Team Liquid Europe Rank #18 Jamppi Elias Olkkonen nAts Ayaz Akhmetshin Enzo Enzo Mestari Mistic James Orfila Keiko Georgio Sanassy in the upper semifinals of Masters Tokyo, securing their place in the upper finals.

The match felt like it ended as quickly as it started. Liquid were already demoralized by the time they entered Haven, and C0M just had to hit his opponents with a quick-fire 4K on A that visually explained how the entire match felt.

“I was going crazy. I don't even know, my mind was racing at this point,” C0M said. “I looked at Corbin and I could see his heart beating through his shirt, like actually. It was at least 200 BPM,” Boostio chimed in.

“It was a really good play from him. We just loved it because it was a good move from him,” Redgar said, as even his team seemed surprised by the play.

“It's never over for players. You play until the match is over,” Sayf said. “We need to focus on what's happening in front of us. I think nAts is good at saying ‘it's 0-0 guys, and we don't really care.' We came back 2-10 against FUT, we could probably do it again. But magic needs to happen, I guess.”

And the magic was all on EG's side tonight. They took a clean 13-2 on their Fracture pick, and followed that up with a comfortable 13-9 on Liquid's pick of Haven. Just like in their previous match against LOUD, it always felt like EG were in full control.

“What was funny for me, though, was eMIL coming in on a timeout starting to talk about the next map,” Sayf said. “Like bro, my coach is already on the next map. It was super funny for me.”

A lot of today's win, potter said, came down to everyone on the team lining up on the same wavelength. The win came more from confidence and teamplay, rather than strong pre-preparation.

“We did have a decent prep coming into this one, but everyone's clicking on the right page,” she continued. “Everyone is elevating each other and hyping each other up and everything is falling into place.”

Demon1 had a quiet day, giving IGL Boostio the space to shine. His high-power fragging cumulated in four opening frags on Fracture, as well as 232 ADR and 1.55 rating. He kept up his show on Haven, scoring slightly inferior numbers to average out 1.42 rating in the match.

“The team was insane. They're always insane. I usually pop off, but they had me today saving my energy for FNATIC. I'll meet [Derke] in the finals,” Demon1 said.

nAts was the only one left standing once the match was over. He was the only Liquid player to finish with a positive kill differential and a rating over 1.00, also accruing the highest ADR (161) and first kills (five).

And even if he was the only one with positive statlines, everyone on Liquid felt equally positive. They were laughing and cheering all the while getting run over on Fracture — Redgar's “warmup scrim.”

“Mentally, we were pretty good. We never felt like we were in a bad state, or in a bad mood,” eMIL said. “Today, the mental strength of a team was impressive to see, even though we lost pistols. They get a nice 4K or two headshots with a [Sheriff], stuff like that happens, we still kept a good mentality. We were fine.”

Even still, Liquid may have been “overthinking a bit today. That's why tomorrow — one day — we can't change a lot of stuff and we're not going to change a lot of stuff,” nAts said.

“You can't evolve a lot within one day or one evening, right? It's maybe small increments or small changes you can do,” eMIL added. “For us, it's just about being ready for tomorrow, not letting this loss cloud everything we're doing and making sure we still keep the positivity high.”

eMIL and nAts' “tomorrow” is when they put their necks on the chopping block. This loss means the team are two maps away from elimination, or four matches away from newfound and unexpected glory.

Team Liquid play their first elimination match on June 20, at 12 p.m. JST against NRG Esports.

None of these players are strangers to the pressure of elimination. (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)

For Evil Geniuses, it's far from over. They are guaranteed a top three finish at Masters in their first LAN outing, but they are steadfast in the no-expectations attitude that has carried them this far.

“Not really any expectations. Everything right now is kind of a bonus or icing on the cake. Yeah, definitely surprising," Ethan said. "I think we're undefeated, 8-0, especially against the caliber of teams we've been playing. The champs of NA, the champs of EU, are all taken down so far.”

“And DRX,” Boostio quipped.

Heading into a monumental upper bracket final, Evil Geniuses “don't care”, but they still acknowledge their confidence levels are still as high as can be. They'll need that confidence (and, of course, Demon1 back to his regular form) if they want to get within touching distance of a win against FNATIC FNATIC Europe Rank #1 Leo Leo Jannesson Derke Nikita Sirmitev Boaster Jake Howlett Chronicle Timofey Khromov Alfajer Emir Ali Beder , whom they hope to play on June 21, at 12 p.m. JST.

“As Boostio said, our confidence is really high. I think we have a good read about how FNATIC want to play. We've been inspired by their plays for the past year and a half. [We're] very familiar with FNATIC's game,” potter said. “Like Ethan said, we beat the number ones, the number twos in each region, it would be quite nice to check off FNATIC off the list as well.”

“We're just checking off the list,” Ethan ended.