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ESL One Cologne 2017 - FaZe Clan breeze past Team Liquid in quarter final

FaZe Clan advanced to the semi-finals of ESL One Cologne 2017 after defeating Team Liquid with relative ease over the course of two maps.

Europe FaZe Clan vs. United States Team Liquid 2-0 (16:9, 16:5)

de_Overpass - 16:9 (8:7, 8:2)

The third quarter-final matchup in Cologne featured Liquid who were one of the two teams in the group stage to advance without dropping a map and a FaZe team that looked beastly. FaZe kicked-off the match by winning the pistol round on their map pick, Overpass. Two more rounds went FaZe's way before Liquid got on board at 3-1. Peter "stanislaw" Jarguz's triple-kill on bombsite A crumbled FaZe's economy on the fifth round and marked the beginning of Team Liquid's dominance. Four more rounds were won by the North Americans and in the tenth round, Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken killed three to make the score 7-3 but that was the last time Liquid won a round in the first half of the map, as FaZe went back to winning rounds starting form the 11th. The next round saw Håvard "rain" Nygaard killing three before falling to leave his teammates Aleksi "allu" Jalli and Fabien "kioShiMa" Fiey in a 2v1 post-plant situation which they won against Twistzz to make it 7-5. The European mix continued playing impressive Counter-Strike and took the lead after the last round of the half, at 8-7.

FaZe, now playing as the Counter-Terrorists, started the second half by winning the pistol round thanks to Håvard "rain" Nygaard's quad-kill, but were immediately reset by Liquid and their force-buy in the following round. Fortunately for FaZe, Liquid failed to use their economical advantage and Finn "karrigan" Andersen's team won back-to-back rounds to increase the deficit to 5 at 13-8. In that round, Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken picked up all three kills in a 3v3 situation and Liquid finally breached FaZe's defence. But, as it turned out, that was a one-time thing as FaZe won three and closed out the first map 16-9.

de_Train - 16:5 (13:2, 3:3)

Playing to survive in Cologne, Liquid started their map pick as the T side and won the first pistol round, but Fabien "kioShiMa" Fiey's triple-kill in the following round when FaZe forced with pistols and armor tied the score at 1-1. Two more rounds went FaZe's way and Nikola "NiKo" Kova? held bombsite A with three kills in the fifth round to earn his team their fourth. Liquid were once again left with insufficient money for a full-buy and were unable to overrun FaZe's defence in the following round. Things continued in similar fashion until the 12th round when the scoreboard saw a 10-1 FaZe lead. Josh "jdm64" Marzano opened up the B site with three AWP kills and won Liquid their second round against FaZe's ten. Eager to prove he can snipe as effective as jdm, karrigan shut off Liquid's offense on bombsite A with three AWP kills in the following round to reset the T economy. FaZe won two more before halftime to establish an even more comfortable lead with 13-2.

Liquid had to win the pistol round if they were to make a comeback. The North American team started the second half by doing so with two rounds on their way. FaZe won the third round of the half but Liquid answered by resetting FaZe's economy. At 14-5, against an opponent with a lesser economy compared to theirs, Liquid were the favourites to win the 20th round which would start a long and tough comeback for them. But the problem for them was, ironically, "The Problem". The bomb plant on A was a loss on itself for Liquid but Fabien "kioShiMa" Fiey clutched a 1v2 against Josh "jdm64" Marzano and Nick "nitr0" Cannella to end Liquid's hopes. At map point, FaZe made no mistakes and picked up the victory on Train to advance to the semi-finals.

Image courtesy of Adela Sznajder - ESL

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