Ending off the second round of lower bracket matches at the VCT 2025 EMEA Kickoff, Team Liquid Team Liquid Europe Rank #24 paTiTek Patryk Fabrowski kamyk Maks Rychlewski nAts Ayaz Akhmetshin Keiko Georgio Sanassy kamo Kamil Frąckowiak swept GIANTX GIANTX Europe Rank #144 purp0 Semyon Borchev Cloud Kirill Nehozhin runneR Emil Trajkovski westside Miłosz Duda tomaszy Tomás Machado 2-0. With this win, Team Liquid stays alive while GIANTX is eliminated from both the Kickoff tournament and Masters Bangkok contention.

After a tough time out on Fracture in their last matches, Team Liquid changed their team composition by adding a duelist while removing the Sage and replacing her with Tejo. GIANTX ran the same Raze and Killjoy team from their previous Fracture win, but Team Liquid won the pistol and kamyk stole a rifle from Cloud on the bonus to get four rounds on the board.

It could've been one-sided, but getting an Operator in purp0 's hands brought the half back from disaster. Team Liquid remained confident in their comp changes, with kamyk popping off on Tejo to lead his team to an 8-4 half.

kamyk cleans up with four kills against GIANTX.

TL secured their second pistol of the map off of some mistakes in positioning from GIANTX and a great shot from nAts . When both teams could afford rifles, GIANTX found success attacking B site until a standout round from kamo won a big thrifty to end the comeback before it truly began. TL looked revitalized with their new Fracture comp, defeating GIANTX 13-8 to get a 1-0 series lead.

Split began with Team Liquid winning its third pistol in a row, with nAts returning to his Gambit Esports Gambit Esports Inactive Redgar Igor Vlasov Chronicle Timofey Khromov d3ffo Nikita Sudakov sheydos Bogdan Naumov nAts Ayaz Akhmetshin form by lurking and flanking with perfect timing. Plus, for the second map in a row, TL converted its bonus round to take an early lead.

nAts uses a Viper's Pit to clutch a 1v2 against GIANTX.

GIANTX won its first Split round on its eighth attempt, but Team Liquid struggled more as the half went on, only ending the half up 8-4. Despite losing its first pistol of the series, TL converted the eco round off two big Sherriff shots from Keiko . That deflated GIANTX, as Team Liquid closed the map out 12-6 and swept the series. The series MVP was kamo, who finished the series with a lobby-leading 39 kills and a 1.30 match rating.

With this confident win, Team Liquid has a true test in one of the best underdog teams in the region: BBL Esports BBL Esports Europe Rank #18 Jamppi Elias Olkkonen sociablEE Volkan Yonal PROFEK Dawid Święć vakk Vakaris Bebravičius stand-in LewN Burak Alkan . Whoever wins that matchup will face the loser of the upper bracket final of Team Heretics Team Heretics Europe Rank #1 MiniBoo Dominykas Lukaševičius Wo0t Mert Alkan RieNs Enes Ecirli benjyfishy Benjamin David Fish Boo Ričardas Lukaševičius and Team Vitality Team Vitality Europe Rank #5 trexx Nikita Cherednichenko Derke Nikita Sirmitev Kicks Kimmie Laasner Sayf Saif Jibraeel Less Felipe de Loyola Basso for the chance to make it to Masters Bangkok.