ESL One Germany 2020 would see its first team eliminated in
the playoff stage today as Team Nigma and Team Liquid went head-to-head in the
first of two lower bracket best-of-three series today.
There have been many moments lately where Nigma have
struggled, including the group stages of ESL One Germany – that said, they
ensured they would make it into the playoffs but were tasked with taking down
Team Secret if they wanted to remain in the upper bracket. As that goes, it did
not happen, even though they took the first game of the series and would eventually
fall 1-2 and drop to the lower bracket. Joining them would be an extremely weak
Liquid who failed to take down mudgolems after turning around a huge deficit in
one game of the series. Now the two teams would have to fight for their
tournament lives.
Liquid seemed to go into the first series in the same way
they did yesterday, putting all their metaphorical eggs in one basket and
relying heavily on Michael ‘miCKe’ Vu’s Morphling to carry them to victory. But
by the half hour mark, with Liquid barely able to string together a single team
fight, the first game was all but over as Nigma pummeled their opponents into
submission. But game two is where Liquid finally seemed to find their footing
as they utilized Storm Spirit and Spectre to destroy Nigma. However, the MVP of
the game has to be the position five Rubick from Aydin “iNSaNiA” Sarkohl that always
stole the perfect skills to turn the tides.
Even though it did get a bit shaky for Liquid as the game
progressed with Nigma’s “never-give-up” attitude, the series would eventually
be tied and one last game would be left to decide the first elimination at ESL
One Germany 2020. Once Liquid had found their footing, there was no stopping
them as they dominated Nigma in game three. It took only 20-minutes for the
first set of barracks to fall and Nigma no hope of ever finding any sort of
comeback.
Although it took a while for Liquid to completely close things out, there was nowhere for Nigma to go as they would eventually be the first team eliminated from ESL One Germany 2020’s playoff stage – a result just as terrible as their last event. For Liquid, they would move forward in the lower bracket at the event, with the elimination action continuing in three days.
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