Favourites take it cleanly all day in Rotterdam

It was a great day to be a big dog in Rotterdam.

The closest in terms of pre-game odds was Liquid vs The MongolZ, and while it proved a tight affair on both maps, The Mongolz edged it twice to take an important win into tomorrow's decider.

We've been very critical of Liquid, albeit we of course believe fairly, so it's only right we give them some credit and say they looked a lot more like the team we know they can be today, and were simply closely beaten by a very good MongolZ outfit.

ELiGE had an excellent series, collecting 52 kills in two lost maps, and nobody was particularly poor. MongolZ are a scary team to face with depth, firepower and speed, and in mzinho they had an X factor that won Mirage for them.

The youngster won two clutches on the T side to scrape an even score at the half, before 910 really put the squeeze on Liquid on their CT side and ultimately won the map.

Liquid had come back from 8-4 down on Ancient to force OT, but fell short in round 30 despite ELiGE's best efforts.

TYLOO took a map off of Falcons, but immediately regretted wounding the beast as they were absolutely demolished on maps two and three.

TYLOO snuck into a 1-0 lead in overtime on Inferno, but were pegged back sharpish as Falcons won a 14-rounder on Ancient with kyxsan going postal. There was a neat twist of fate as Falcons won an unwinnable 2v5 (instead of losing it) with kyxsan grabbing four of the kills, pushing the boot down further on the necks of the Chinese team.

Unfortunately for TYLOO, Mirage wouldn't be much better - though one could argue it was actually twice as good, as they picked up two rounds. kyousuke and NiKo seemed to have the freedom to do what they wanted, and what they wanted was to kill a lot of TYLOO players.

Worryingly, Falcons only had one more opening kill (8-7) than TYLOO, and still won 13-2. Those Chinese protocols, man, they get you every time.

Spirit dispatched of 9z in a way so dismissive it really gives you more concern for MOUZ.

This was essentially a non-event, an exhibition game for donk to farm some kills and show off to the cameras. Spirit were never in any danger, and it really makes you wonder quite how awful MOUZ were yesterday.

donk had over one kill a round in this one. Dominance.

NRG and FURIA played out a bit like the TYLOO v Falcons one, but less brutal. NRG stole map one in the series, but molodoy, YEKINDAR and KSCERATO were NOT having that one bit, and let NRG have ten rounds in the next two maps.

23-6 for molodoy on Nuke. You shouldn't have angered him, really.

Tomorrow's games are all bangers, but FURIA vs Falcons for progression is an absolute must-watch. Get that on the big screen ASAP.