BiliBili Gaming downs Team Liquid in three-map thriller

After the opening match of Masters Toronto saw a clash of powerhouses end in a quick, in-and-out blowout, the second match saw a ragtag, stand-in-bolstered Team Liquid Team Liquid Europe Rank #9 penny Erik Penny paTiTek Patryk Fabrowski nAts Ayaz Akhmetshin Keiko Georgio Sanassy kamo Kamil Frąckowiak Serial Maikls Zdanovs clash against a red-hot Bilibili Gaming Bilibili Gaming China Rank #4 whzy Wang Haozhe (王昊哲) Levius Lu Yinzhong (卢胤中) rushia Wang Xiaojie (王晓杰) nephh Marcus Tan Knight Liu Yuxiang (刘宇翔) .

The series went the full three-map distance and was played out on BiliBili Gaming's Icebox, Team Liquid's Haven, and the decider map of Sunset. BiliBili Gaming won Icebox 13-10, Team Liquid won Haven 16-14, and BiliBili Gaming won Sunset 13-10.

The match, between China's runner-ups and EMEA's third-placed team from the regions' respective Stage 1 tournaments, was sure to be one of the more intriguing opening matchups of the Swiss stage for a multitude of reasons. Quite possibly the biggest storyline of the entire event was the absence of nAts . The Team Liquid in-game leader, who has pushed his side to back-to-back international events, was not available for the beginning of the event due to complications with his visa.

Team Liquid picked up YFP YFP North America Rank #13 jakee Jake Anderson bdog Brandon Sanders stellar Brenden McGrath thief Brady Dever Duelist penny to fill out the starting five, expanding the number of players who can play the Duelist role on Liquid's roster to three.

With three people able to play that role, Team Liquid opted to field a zero-Duelist comp on Icebox, centered around a Controller pairing of Harbor and Clove. Meanwhile, BiliBili Gaming opted for the infamous "swamp comp" pairing of Viper and Harbor, with whzy , who had the highest ACS in China Stage 1, on Jett.

The more attacker-sided map played out as such, with the attacking side winning 15 rounds to the defenders' eight. However, both pistols and their ensuing anti-eco rounds gave BiliBili the upper hand, and eventually the edge to close out the map 13-10.

rushia and whzy combined for 44 kills, tallying a server-high 22 each, with a match-leading five of whzy's kills being first bloods.

The focus shifted to Haven, a popular playground for double-Duelist comps. While BiliBili continued to be spearheaded by whzy, on Neon this time, Team Liquid opted for the two-pronged approach with penny on Phoenix and kamo on Neon.

Team Liquid found itself in BiliBili's shoes from the previous map, wrapping up their defense half down 8-4, but using two pistol and anti-eco rounds to keep things close. Team Liquid seemed down and out at 12-9, but a crucial timeout helped them bounce back to win four straight rounds to take a 13-12 lead in overtime.

penny, who had just one day of practice with Team Liquid ahead of Toronto, had a stellar homecoming on Haven. The Canadian went 30/18, ending with a map-high rating of 1.61.

After the winners of the first two maps both swept the pistol and anti-eco rounds, Team Liquid and BiliBili split the pistol rounds on Sunset, with the defending team winning each. After giving up an early 4-1 lead to open the map, BiliBili Gaming head coach bail called for a timeout, rerouting the team to end the half up 7-5. After winning their pistol and sealing the anti-eco, the Chinese squad took a 9-5 lead.

Chaos continued as Team Liquid threatened to force overtime yet again, but heroics from the likes of whzy and Levius got BiliBili across the line in 13-10 fashion.

whzy, with a server-high 69 kills, helped give BiliBili an opening win in the Swiss stage. They will go up against another team that wins its opening match, while Team Liquid will face elimination against another team that lost its opening match.