Aurora get slaughtered by Liquid as NAVI topple Falcons - IEM Beijing Day One Recap
Team Liquid are a real team again, it seems.
They absolutely demolished Aurora on the opening day of IEM Beijing to make a statement and now look to be in a good position to at the very least make playoffs.
EliGE and malbsMd were just untouchable, ripping through Aurora's powderpuff defence for 9 in back-to-back maps and making Aurora look a bit silly. malbsMd was absolutely extraodinary on Inferno, opening up banana more times than a starving gorilla, and even ending Aurora's T side before it got started with a saucy quad.
EliGE then took over on Anubis, rolling back the years and hammering Aurora time and time again. It was absolutely brutal, and you can't pick one single thing wrong with Aurora's performance - instead, you'd struggle to find one thing right.
It was an absolute shelacking.
NAVI really do seem to be back to their best, as they pulled off a quick 2-0 over Falcons.
We're really not sure what to make of Falcons, but we're starting to understand what to make of w0nderful, who again put in a superb showing against a top 5 team. He rises to the occasion over and over, demolishing Falcons with a near-flawless CT side after an impressive offence.
He was similarly impactful on Mirage though not quite as destructive; though in a game that finished 13-11, he won a 1v2 that started with a double kill earlier in the round - a round he completely won on his own that turned out to be massively impactful. He wasn't alone in that - makazze's ace in a 3v5 somehow turned a half buy into a won round for NAVI, which is as much on his brilliance as it is on Falcons' insistence on screwing up.
kyousuke did what he could and had some big rounds; a triple that broke a streak of NAVI's five in a row was a potential game-changer, but it was too little to properly turn the tide.
FaZe pulled off an incredible comeback against FURIA on map one just to capitulate on the decider and drop to the lower bracket.
FURIA were up 11-2 on Ancient but failed to win a single other round, with jcobbb putting in a phenomenal CT performance to steal the most unlikely of maps - a little bit of FaZe magic.
No, seriously, a little bit. FURIA smashed them on Dust 2 and Cache.
G2's inevitable loss to PARIVISION was every bit as funny as it was predictable. Jame taught r1nkle a lesson on Anubis, and xiELO came up huge to win the series on Ancient. Quite where G2 go from here is unclear.
The MongolZ came from a map down to topple Legacy, who suffered some intense aura loss by finally losing in China. If The MongolZ don't come good soon, you have to expect 910 will be getting calls from some big teams; that guy is mustard.
MOUZ obviously beat on TYLOO, who have their own internal turmoil to deal with before they step up to a team of this calibre. That game was basically a non-event.
Over on the B stream, BETBOOM beat 9z in three and HEROIC beat the stuffing out of poor B8. susp was ridiculous in that game - our interest is piqued.
