Virtus.pro and Team Liquid recorded easy victories Thursday to advance to the Round of 8 in the single-elimination Blast Premier Fall Showdown.
Team Liquid swept 9z Team and Virtus.pro did the same to Movistar Riders. Liquid will meet VP on Saturday.
Every Liquid player finished with a positive kills-to-deaths differential, led by Brazilian Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo’s plus-18, in their 16-3 win on Nuke and 16-6 decision on Inferno. American Jake “Stewie2K” Yip led Liquid with 35 kills. Uruguay’s Franco “dgt” Garcia led 9z with 29 kills.
Virtus.pro edged Riders 16-14 on Vertigo and won 16-8 on Mirage. Russian Dzhami “Jame” Ali led VP with a plus-15 K-D differential while Mareks “YEKINDAR” Galinskis of Latvia had a team-high 47 kills. Alejandro “mopoz” Fernandez-Quejo Cano led the all-Spanish Riders with 43 kills and a plus-seven.
All matches are best-of-three in the playoffs, which run through Sunday. The top two teams proceed to the Fall Finals. The winner takes home $30,000 and earns 1,500 Blast Premier points in the $162,500 event.
The playoffs continue with three matches Friday:
Evil Geniuses vs. MAD Lions (Round of 16)
Heroic vs. Dignitas (Round of 8)
Complexity vs. OG (Round of 8)
Blast Premier: Fall Showdown prize pool:
1-2. $30,000 — TBD
3-4. $16,250 — TBD
5-8. $10,000 — TBD
9-16. $3,750 — POGGERZ, Team Fiend, MIBR, paiN Gaming, Movistar Riders, 9z Team, Lynn Vision Gaming, TBD
–Field Level Media
