Image: Ubisoft/Kirill Bashkirov
O Clássico do Siege took place today in Jönköping as a result of Wednesday’s draw -- an unfortunate event that put all four Brazilian teams in the same side of the bracket.
Following w7m esports’ crushing win against Black Dragons, it was Team Liquid’s turn. After a hard-fought first map on Villa and a very one-sided game on Clubhouse, it was Liquid that moved onto the semi-finals.
Luccas “Paluh” Molina spoke about their rival countrymen after the game in a written interview with SiegeGG.
“We are used to play against them, we kinda knew a lot of what they think and feel comfortable playing,” he said.
Team Liquid clearly had control of the game for most of the series, though it did not seem so for the first three attacking rounds. A José “bullet1” Victor 1v5 clutch on round nine on Villa was the was particularly embarrassing and saw Liquid actually fall behind.
“We were pretty calm, we knew the beginning and mid of rounds were good, but we were just lacking some finalization,” Paluh explained.
Luckily for them, Gabriel “AsK” Santos stopped Gabriel “cameram4n” Hespanhol’s 1v3 clutch attempt to deny Liquid a chance at overtime. Two rounds later, Lorenzo “Lagonis” Volpi denied cameram4n another clutch to win the map 8-6.
Next up was Team Liquid’s pick, Clubhouse. According to Paluh, the team “knew [FaZe] wouldn’t expect it” as he believes it’s a “good map for us.”
Sure enough, Team Liquid smashed a sloppy and demotivated FaZe, closing out the series with a 7-1 map win.
While Paluh was the highest-rated player in the team with a SiegeGG Rating of 1.39, the entirety of Team Liquid contributed well -- exactly as their IGL Lagonis had intended. In an interview with him after the second day of the Six Jönköping Major group stage, he had said that “everyone is comfortable and all players figured out the right way to help the team.”
As a result, in their quarter-final game, none of the Liquid players had a SiegeGG Rating below 1.15 -- an impressive feat considering the series saw just 22 rounds played.
Tomorrow’s opponents will be w7m esports, the team led by the former world champion Julio “JULIO” Giacomelli. It is always an electric matchup, with the most recent clash between the two teams having come in the Copa Elite Six grand final -- one that w7m won. As such, foor some, the match will be the real grand-final.
“Definitely it’s gonna be a good match, we really want to get our revenge from that final,” said Paluh, confident in his own team’s strength.