Team Liquid send Astralis home - Day four stage two Budapest Major recap

History repeated itself as Astralis fell to Liquid in a 2-2 game, just like they did in Antwerp.

Astralis struggled to lay a glove on Liquid on Nuke, and were comfortably beaten on map two, Mirage, too.

Liquid raced into a huge lead on their CT side of Nuke with a conveyor belt of ridiculous highlights that showed off the expected firepower difference. One might have expected a little more finesse and guile from the Danes, though - especially on their pick.

Though it ended in a manner that didn’t look completely one-sided, it was a merely cosmetic comeback after Liquid were 11-1 up at the half.

Mirage was much better from HooXi and co, but they were outclassed down the stretch and could not live with Liquid’s ability to multikill - most notably, a very silly double through smoke from NAF.

Astralis’ Major journey ends here, but Liquid survive to stage three.

In the opening game of the day, Passion UA won the North American derby over M80 to send their brethren home.

M80 ground out a map one win, but were nowhere to be found on maps two and three as Passion UA ran over them. Three PUA players had single figure deaths on Inferno, while JT absolutely ripped M80 apart on Train. This was early CS2 JT vibes.

We’re still completely unsure as to how good they can be, but Passion UA are in the next stage, and right now that is all that matters. We’d be surprised if they made it to playoffs, but stranger things have happened.

This was not the best game of the stage, to put it lightly, but that wasn't really their fault. M80 capitulated on the final two maps, and left us with just as many questions as we had before the event.

In the final game of the day, it was heartbreak for NIP who fell short of the first stage with a loss to 3DMAX - who, in fairness, completely outclassed them.

The Frenchmen have been playing at the top tier with this line-up for a while and that experience shined through against an NIP team who, while individually have plenty of time at this level, collectively do not. Graviti joint top-fragged the series with 33 kills, but 19 of those came on a rampant CT side of Ancient, where he blitzed the NIP attack time and time again to force an eight-round lead at the half.

There was a faint glimmer of optimism when Snappi executed four on the pistol round, but 3DMAX broke straight back and finished before NIP even really got started.

Train was a bit closer, but only because NIP started on the CT side - once again, they found no success at all on the T side, winning just one round from nine tries, as opposed to the two in ten on Ancient. As much as we all like Snappi, that's not acceptable for an IGL of his calibre. It doesn't all fall on his shoulders, but he did also only pick up four T side kills combined.

For 3DMAX, it's not quite a return to form just yet, but these are encouraging signs, and we're glad to see one of the more unique and interesting teams back amongst the elite.

Stage three beckons!