The Chinese region team BiliBili Gaming were able to defeat EMEA’s Team Liquid in a 2-1 best-of-three match.
Team Liquid looked like an entirely different team, they were unable to bring their team lead, nAts, to Canada due to his Visa issues.
In turn, it led to Team Liquid acquiring Canadian player Penny on a loan from YFP.
The first map was Icebox, BiliBili Gaming's pick.
Team Liquid started on the attacking side, and BiliBili Gaming (BLG) started on defence.
BLG would start the rounds slowly but aggressively, but would struggle on the defensive side as Team Liquid would always find a way on site, and played better and coordinated every attack.
Going into the half, Team Liquid was leading with a score of 7-5 and was looking to continue the momentum.
As the second half of Map one started, BLG would start round 13 with a misdirection play, which would lead to Team Liquid thinking BLG would commit to A site, but they would rotate and take B site all to themselves.
This would start a run for BLG in the second half, where they would win 8 rounds in a row and get the win with the total scores being 13-10, with BLG’s Rushia being the team's MVP of Icebox with 22 Kills, 15 Deaths, and 10 Assists.
Heading into Map Two, Team Liquid would look for a chance to bounce back in a major way with their map pick being Haven.
Team Liquid struggled in the first half on the defensive side, winning four rounds to BiliBili’s 8, and going into the second half, BLG looked confident with an 8-4 lead.
As round 13 started, Team Liquid changed their pace and started playing more aggressively and as they attempted to gain control over C site.
Team Liquid’s Serial would enter C short and get into an engagement with BLG Whzy and would lose, but BLG Levius would get revenge on Serial, but Team Liquid’s Kamo would enter and make a trade.
Liquid would be able to plant during the battle in C short, and both Kamo and Penny would clean out the rest of BiliBili and change the tide of this match.
Team Liquid executed a comeback and tie the game up at round 24 and force overtime.
That led to an epic back-and-forth battle where Team Liquid came out on top, winning 16-14 and giving the hometown hero Penny a Map MVP with 30 Kills, 18 Deaths and 15 Assists.
Now tied at one map each, in the deciding Map of Sunset, Team Liquid would come out strong with a 4-1 lead in the first five rounds.
They were able to get the upper hand as they countered BLG’s aggressive pushes onto A site, though it worked once, Team Liquid would shut it down immediately, leading to BLG calling for a timeout on round 6.
After the timeout, BLG quickly won the following two rounds out of three, before Team Liquid would take a timeout of their own to take some momentum away from BLG.
Though the timeout didn’t change anything, as Team Liquid lost the next three rounds before the switch and would start the half down with a score of 7-5 in BiliBili Gaming’s favour.
Now, on the defensive side, BLG would continue their run, kicking off the start of the half by mowing down Team Liquid on the post plant on B site, and BLG would mow down Liquid again on entry into B site.
BiliBili Gaming would win the decider Map and move on into the Swiss stage, leaving Team Liquid to try and fight out of the losers' bracket.
The match MVP was BLG’s Rushia, who had a total of 58 Kills, 49 Deaths and 33 Assists.
Team Liquid will have to regroup and find a solution, but that might come sooner than expected, as nAts has informed the team that he has fixed his visa issues and will be joining the team in Toronto soon.