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ESL One: Cologne 2016 - Day 5 recap

The fifth day of ESL One: Cologne 2016 has concluded, deciding the grand-finalists.
 

Grand FinalistsEliminated
Brazil SK GamingPoland Virtus.Pro
United States Team LiquidSweden Fnatic


Today saw the semi-final action as two exciting matches were played. First, SK Gaming beat Virtus.pro, then Team Liquid defeated fnatic to be the first North American team to be in a major grand finals. Moreover, the ESL One Cologne 2016 grand final will be the first major grand final that doesn't feature a European team.

Poland Virtus.pro vs Brazil SK Gaming 9:6, 6:9, 4:2 (19:17); 3:12, 2:4 (5:16); 9:6, 3:10 (12:16)
Winner: Brazil SK Gaming
Maps: de_Cobblestone, de_Nuke, de_Mirage
MVP: Brazil Marcelo "coldzera" David

The first semi-final match was between two legendary teams. Both Virtus.pro and SK Gaming had major victories in the past and again, both of those teams were eager to win another one. The first map, Cobblestone, started with SK's pistol round victory. The score was always close as the round difference was always under 4 rounds but the main reason behind this was Wiktor "TaZ" Wojtas. The Polish veteran was the top fragger of the map with 31 frags. After an intense, 36 round long map, Virtus.pro were the victors by a margin of just two rounds.

After securing Cobblestone, which was SK's pick, Virtus.pro were confident jumping into Nuke. The Nuke pick from the Polish team was indeed a questionable one as they had better maps but they possibly wanted to surprise their powerful opponents on a map that they thought they have practiced more than SK. The things didn't go the way VP thought they would have and Nuke was a complete bloodbath. After 21 rounds and with two players under 10 kills for VP, the series was tied at 1-1.

The decider map was Mirage, a map that favoured neither team. The first half of Mirage went as expected. There were just 3 rounds between the two teams. After the half time break, SK's defence seemed un-breachable by Virtus.pro as the Brazilian side defended the bombsites successfully 10 times in 13 rounds to win the Mirage and to move onto the grand finals.

United States Team Liquid vs Sweden fnatic 10:5, 6:8 (16:13); 11:4, 5:9 (16:13)
Winner: United States Team Liquid
Maps: de_Cobblestone, de_Cache
MVP: Ukraine Aleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev

Unlike the first one, the second semi-final match had a favourite which was fnatic. The Swedish team had destroyed Gambit on day four and as a result they were so confident in themselves, maybe somewhat overconfident. Before their first match at Cologne, Liquid's possible quarter-final achievement would be a surprise for many fans around the world after three shaky and unstable months but starting from their very first game, the North American team played like they did back at MLG Columbus 2016. Therefore, their semi-final achievement wasn't a surprise at all. But this time around, their opponent was fnatic that crushed Gambit and looked rock solid.

The first map was Cobblestone and it was Liquid's pick. Fnatic started Cobblestone well and secured an early lead but the second part of the first half went under Liquid dominance as they won seven of the last eight rounds to lead 10-5 at the halftime. The second half of Cobblestone went underway with fnatic grabbing the pistol round. Things were going terribly for Liquid until their tactical pause after the 24th round. At that time, fnatic was in the lead by two rounds. The decision of taking a timeout worked and Liquid won the round after it but as a result of losing three players, they were lacking money to get a full buy the following round. The score was 13-12 in favour of fnatic on that crucial round. Despite the sketchy buy, Liquid won the round thanks to Aleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev's 3K. After that round win, Liquid never looked back and won three more rounds to make the series 1-0.

Cache was up next as fnatic's pick. fnatic started Cache the same way they did in Cobblestone by winning the pistol round. The two anti-eco rounds following it were comfortable wins for the Swedish side. Then, the unbelievable Liquid win streak began. The American team won eight rounds in a row before fnatic finally grabbed a round. But Liquid managed to win the following round and reset fnatic's economy. The remaining two rounds of the first half went Liquid's way. The score at the halftime was 11-4. Kostyliev's 1v2 clutch on the 14th round was one of the best plays of the week as the Ukranian star clutched the round with two no-scoped AWP kills. The 11-4 score line was favouring Team Liquid but the American dream had to wait a little more. fnatic won yet another pistol round to start a comeback. When Liquid stopped the Swedes, the score was 11-13 in favour of fnatic. But once Liquid started winning rounds again, fnatic players were unable to beat their opponents, especially Kostyliev and Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski on aim duels. In the end, Team Liquid closed out Cache 16-13 and became the first North American team to be in a major grand finals.

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