Group B Key Takeaways: Liquid on fire makes opponents evaporate, fourth first-round international exit in a row for CAG

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Group B saw Spacestation Gaming, FaZe Clan, and Rogue constantly hitting each other to avoid fifth place, with CYCLOPS athlete gaming rumbling from time to time, giving hopes to their fans of a possible resurgence. Sadly for CAG, that didn’t happen.

While all that was happening, Team Liquid made the group of death look like a game of kids. All Rogue, Spacestation Gaming, and FaZe Clan couldn’t take a single map from the hands of the Brazilians. Ironically, it was fifth-placed team CAG the only roster capable of truncating Liquid’s record following a Japanese maximum overtime victory on Kafe.

Overall, practically everything went as the majority of the community expected: CAG finishing last in a somewhat tight group despite Liquid’s dominance.

Surprise of the group

Did it go as anticipated? Yes. Did we expect such a superiority from any of the teams, especially one that has two international debutants? Not at all. 

Team Liquid is clearly the surprise of the group, assorting a dominance that we haven’t seen in any of the groups aside DWG KIA’s over Group D. However, comparing the Koreans with their group stage rivals, the final result was somewhat as expected.

Considering these are Pablo “resetz” Oliveira and Gabriel “AsK” Santos’ international debuts, and the caliber of the opponents they had to face, there is no other possible candidate for surprise of the group. 

Group B Impact Player: NESKWGA

At this point, André “NESKWGA” Oliveira might be in another stratosphere. All kidding aside, the Brazilian was the grim reaper of the group of death as he was the highest rated player in three of the five games played. 

Alongside Luccas “Paluh” Molina, the Brazilian duo put Group B on fire to the point where Liquid’s opponents evaporated.

Match of the group: Spacestation Gaming 2-1 FaZe Clan

First match of the group, and what an opener this was. The Sweden Major champions kicked things off with a great 7-5 victory on Kafe, with Jaime “Cyber” Ramos putting the Brazilians ahead on the map scoreboard. 

Spacestation Gaming would give us another taste of what we are used to seeing from the North American teams at international competitions, as the team was pushed to overtime on Clubhouse and Villa after being 6-4 ahead in both maps. 

In a fascinating turn of events, SSG actually transformed both overtimes to map wins, denying the Brazilians from a splendid debut.