Team Liquid sends EDward Gaming home in all-out brawl

The first day of eliminations at Champions Paris began today with a showdown for survival between Team Liquid Team Liquid Europe Rank #7 purp0 Semyon Borchev wayne Wayne Chang MiniBoo Dominykas Lukaševičius nAts Ayaz Akhmetshin kamo Kamil Frąckowiak and EDward Gaming EDward Gaming China Rank #1 ZmjjKK Zheng Yongkang (郑永康) nobody Wang Senxu (王森旭) CHICHOO Wan Shunzhi (万顺治) cb Wang Qingchuan (王庆川) Smoggy Zhang Zhao (张钊) Jieni7 Zhang Juntai (张君泰) , with either EMEA's first seed or the reigning champions destined to go home first.

These teams last matched up at the start of this year at Masters Bangkok in a 2-0 victory for EDG. Since then, both teams have had their share of ups, downs, and player swaps, but it was Liquid in the end who earned the right to continue their year with a narrow 2-1 win.

The match kicked off on Sunset. Both teams continued to use the compositions they had shown in their respective regions, with Liquid playing Raze-Yoru and EDG opting into the Neon-Breach that had in part defined their Champions run last year.

Despite Liquid being the ones to pick the map, they were locked out from the start. EDG converted the first bonus round with an aggressive Judge 3K from ZmjjKK to take an early 4-0 lead. From there, a series of mishaps on the side of Liquid, including a bizarre lost Dimensional Drift for kamo in round 7, along with oppressive Operator play from ZmjjKK set into motion a 10-round win streak for the side of EDG.

paTiTek managed to win one attack round by using his Omen ultimate to teleport into the opponent's spawn, but it only delayed the inevitable as EDG won Sunset 13-3. ZmjjKK dominated throughout with 22 kills to 9 deaths and 210 ADR.

The next map was Abyss, where EDG switched from Neon and Sage to Waylay and Astra after suffering a 10-2 comeback at the hands of NRG last week. Even with the changeup, however, their defensive woes continued as a revived Liquid collected a 9-3 attack half off of strong mid lurks and site executes. nAts in particular wreaked havoc around the map on Cypher, at one point winning a 1v3 and ending the half with an unbelievable 22/4 K/D.

EDG extended the map in the second half with a pistol win and a couple of heavy ultimate rounds, but Liquid's blend of aggressive peeks into A Main and steadfast backsite holds on their defense gave them the rounds they needed to close out Abyss 13-6. Liquid's captain ended the map with 27 kills, 218 ADR, and a 1.94 rating.

Bind was the decider. This time, both teams made compositional adjustments, with Liquid moving to Raze-Yoru and EDG going for the rare Tejo pick. A chaotic opener set the tone for the rest of the map as both teams dropped anti-ecos within the first five rounds. EDG seized control for a moment, going up 5-3 and forcing a Liquid timeout, but a low buy win followed by a nAts 4K in rounds 9 and 10 made for an even 6-6 half.

EDG won the final pistol, making it a 5-1 pistol round record for them over the course of the series. This time dodging the eco, they seemed primed to claim victory, finding consistent first picks against Liquid's Duelists and forging ahead to a 10-7 lead.

Resilient as ever, Liquid held on against the odds, drawing the score first to 10-9 and then forcing overtime in the face of two match points for EDG. After finally finding their first match point at 14-13 with a crucial 3v5, they capitalized immediately, winning out Bind 15-13. While better-laid plans in midround situations ultimately won Liquid the day, nAts continued to lead from the front individually with a server-high 27 kills.

With this result, the reigning world champions will be denied the chance of defending their Champions title, exiting the tournament winless after a turbulent year. On the other side, Liquid progress to the group decider and will seek revenge against DRX DRX Korea Rank #4 Flicker Kim Tae-hee (김태희) Flashback Cho Min-hyuk (조민혁) MaKo Kim Myeong-gwan (김명관) free1ng No Ha-jun (노하준) HYUNMIN Song Hyun-min (송현민) BeYN Kang Ha-bin (강하빈) on Monday, Sept. 22 with a playoff spot on the line.