Catch up on what happened in the S7 Grand Final between PENTA Sports and Team Liquid.
In a stunning upset, Team Liquid played the best they ever had to strike back at last year's Grand Final loss against an almost identical PENTA Sports, and win the LATAM region's first international title.
PENTA Sports: Fabian, Pengu, Goga, Joonas and Kantoraketti.
Team Liquid: NESKWGA, Bullet1, ziG, psk1 and S3xycake.
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May 21st 2017, Katowice, Poland, Black Dragons vs PENTA Sports. PENTA Sports would then win the title 2-0 in Y2S1 against the scintillating Pro League debutants. On that day, the maps played were Border and Consulate. Of that Black Dragons roster, only Zig and Nesk remained today (with Bullet also having played that season, albeit only online), but the only change for PENTA had been to swap KS out of Kantoraketti (who himself was standing in for Shatte).
Nevertheless, this was a grudge match that was long time coming.
Now, it is Season 7. May 20th 2018, Atlantic City, United States. PENTA Sports faces Team Liquid for this season’s title. The rematch for Zig and Nesk is finally here. For PENTA Sports, the Six Invitational champions, it's a chance to win a record fifth title.
In the map ban phase Liquid would ban Coastline, Kafe Dostoyevsky, and Skyscraper. On the other hand, PENTA would ban Chalet, Clubhouse and Oregon. Liquid would then go on to choose Bank, while Penta would pick Border, leaving the decider to be Consulate.
As such, in a wry coincidence, PENTA and Liquid would once again face each other on Border, an on Consulate, if needed -- both maps that have traditionally been PENTA strongholds.
Immediately it seemed that the world would be treated to a repeat of last year's Grand Final. While Bank was Liquid’s pick, PENTA showed up strong and ruthlessly dominant. They wasted no time in taking a 4-0 lead over TL, surprising everyone including the Brazilians. Liquid would hit back to make things 4-1, but PENTA wouldn’t let them start a comeback streak, and closed out the 1st map of this Grand Final 5-1. The best player on this map was definitely Kanto, as he came up big for the EU side, obtaining 13 kills but only dying once.
On Border, though, it started off with things flipped completely on their heads. It was Team Liquid’s turn to take a strong and decisive lead over the Europeans, surging to a 4-1 lead akin to PENTA on Bank.
However, PENTA were far from down and out, despite the strength that Liquid was showing. Going back to their basics, they would win one round, and then a second, to put them within spitting distance of overtime, and a 2-0 victory.
In the 8th round, PENTA would dominate as we have seen many times before, and force overtime on their own map pick as they tied up the scoreline 4 rounds to all. The map would eventually go all the way to the 11th round, in which Liquid would be able to recover from an early man disadvantage, and take the map 6 rounds to 5. A 2-0 victory for PENTA was not to be. In fact, a PENTA victory itself was not to be.
Consulate has long been known as one of PENTA’s strongest maps, but in a shock upset, Millenium had beat them here with a 5-2 scoreline earlier in the season. Things were looking murky as to which way the map, and the series, would go, but Team Liquid rapidly cleared things up.
While the teams would be initially poised on a knife-edge at 1-1, the LATAM side would leave jaws hanging as they strung together not one, not two, not three, but four rounds in a row, absolutely annihilating PENTA Sports in the process. It was clear that Team Liquid were far more prepared here than their European counterparts, and with the 5-1 map victory, won the series 2-1 to become the first ever Latin American team to win a Rainbow Six Siege Pro League title.
The MVP of the series was undoubtedly Nesk, who managed to get 22 kills in 23 rounds while only conceding 18 deaths.
Today truly has been a historic day, not only with the first title for a LATAM side, but also with the first Grand Final loss PENTA Sports has ever suffered. Despite the situation looking bleak for Team Liquid after the first map -- having been decimated by a flawless 5-0 scoreline, and with the Brazilians almost throwing away a 4-1 lead -- they prevailed in an epic battle against the most successful Rainbow Six team. The entire LATAM region is undoubtedly delighted with this, but the victory will be even sweeter for Nesk, ziG, and Bullet, who will finally be able to put last year's hurt to rest for good.