In one quarterfinal and two semifinals, MLG Columbus provided 19 defended map points and three overtime battles, including the largest comeback in the history of Counter-Strike. With the expectations set properly for those who missed the action, let's dive right into Saturday's action:
The opening series saw Luminosity, ranked No. 2 in the world and expected to be one of the favorites to win it all, take on Virtus.pro, another Legend. VP won it all at the EMS One Katowice 2014, and has made the playoffs in seven straight majors. Since putting the current roster together, the Brazilians have only ever lost a best-of-three series offline against two teams: Fnatic and Natus Vincere. On the other hand, Virtus.pro has been playing through an extended slump, unable to win a tournament since November.
Virtus.pro started off strong, with its bread and butter Terrorist play netting them an early 8-2 lead on Cache, a map where Terrorists had averaged 10.2 rounds up until Saturday. Luminosity's timeout allowed it to get back into the game, with its coach, zews, visibly most vocal. In the end, the half closed at exactly expected value with Snax's team up 10-5 as Terrorists, putting the pressure over to their opponent's side to perform.
FalleN's team responded with a 3-0 lead, only to see NEO clutch the first gun round. But the Brazilians rebounded, going on a 7-0 run to force map point at 15-11. The Poles are known for never giving up on series, and often grinding their way back into them. As such, what happened next perhaps should have been expected. A partly lucky flashbang dodge by Snax in bomb zone B helped win a round that ignited the team, and it was able to force overtime. Having reset mentally, the team's youngest player, byali, led the way in securing Virtus a 19-17 victory.
Map 2 was Cobblestone, one that surprised all analysts as Luminosity's pick. But it clearly came into the game with a plan -- one that probably included surprising Virtus.pro, too -- and showcased dominant defensive play in a mostly Terrorist favored map. The Poles snuck a couple of rounds on the board at the very end, but coldzera's and FalleN's double AWP setup proved too hard to crack, with the favorites running up an 11-4 halftime lead on the harder side of the map.
Despite Luminosity winning the pistol round, the Poles refused to give up. It mustered a run of six rounds, including a one-on-two AWP clutch by the team's leader and star player Snax, before a timeout. But once again it either sparked the team, or at the very least allowed it to adjust to how Virtus.pro was playing, as it went on a four-round run to close out the map with a 16-10 score, tying the series at 1-1. The deciding set was to be on Overpass.
Virtus.pro was hit by bad luck to begin the deciding map that would ultimately eliminate the team in the quarterfinals for the third straight major. Following a Counter-Terrorist pistol round win, a HE grenade glitched on fer, creating one of the tournament's great "what ifs" -- as it not only probably changed the outcome of that round but the entire half. The Brazilians built up full money control, and were able to capitalize on a number of close rounds, putting up a near-insurmountable 12-3 halftime lead.
In the trend of the first two maps -- with double-figure leads in each -- the game turned a whole lot closer than many expected. Luminosity once again won the pistol round, extending its lead to 13-3 but was then stopped by a brick wall. In the end, TACO's triple kill in bomb site A finally got his team on the board, and it was able to finish the series with a 16-12 win on the map, for a 2-1 overall series victory. This meant Luminosity would go on to face Liquid, the solid North American side still remaining, later on in the day.
The first semifinal of MLG Columbus started with an expected map pick phase. Na`Vi does not practice Cache -- with teams always able to veto at least one map -- while Astralis has given up on Cobblestone. That meant the vetoes were set in stone before the match was set to begin. As expected, the Danish side went on to pick inferno, with Na`Vi instead relying on Dust2, a map their two oldest members -- as well as coach starix, who used to play on the team -- have called home since 2010. The decider would not be needed.
The coach of Astralis, zonic, has a tormented past with Na`Vi. While a member of the world's second-best team mTw in 2010, his team was unable to beat Na`Vi. Often times he exits the tournaments even before the grand final due to unlucky bracket draws. Perhaps the most disappointing loss he experienced was at World Cyber Games 2010 in Los Angeles, where Na`Vi's Edward wreaked havoc on mTw on Inferno, with an incredibly strong individual performance. It seemed as if he was determined to repeat that at MLG.
Despite having been mainly relegated to a glorified role player in CS:GO, Edward led everyone in Na`Vi's opening map, which saw him put up a 32-19 Kill-Death difference for +13, a 1.62 rating and 104.1 Average Damage per round. The ex-CIS powerhouse started off 5-0, before astralis took over with an 8-2 run. The Danes eventually clawed their way into a 14-14 score with money control, but in a step all too familiar for them, effectively failed under pressure as Zeus's team executed a bomb site A attack on a quasi-buy, taking all momentum back and one round later stealing the map 16-14.
In the second map, Astralis had lost the wind from their sails. Na`Vi played picture-perfect textbook Counter-Strike as Terrorists, as we have grown to expect from them, and cruised to a 8-0 lead. The Danes put up a run of three rounds, but then lost an inexplicable one-on-one with time running out and cajunb still peeking, giving Edward a chance to win -- which he did. The team that is known for never having gotten past the semifinals at a major, and generally struggling in big games, crumbled under the pressure and wound up losing 16-5. This map was led by flamie, a player who is effectively a younger version of Edward, finishing with a +10 K-D difference and a 1.56 rating, and a monstrous 117.1 ADR.
The final match of the day could not have been more painful for the home crowd, which wasted no time in letting all the players know who they were cheering for. Once again both teams had obvious maps to veto, with Liquid opting to play Cache, the map it had previously beaten FaZe and Counter Logic Gaming on, while Luminosity settled for Mirage, on which they had defeated NiP and mousesports in group A. Hiko's Liquid started slow, down 7-2 on what is considered the easier side of Mirage, but won five rounds before halftime to keep the score manageable at 8-7.
SPEECHLESS! @Luminosity come back from a huge deficit and take @TeamLiquidPro in overtime! Onto map two!#LGLOYAL pic.twitter.com/ig0kifdXf9
- Luminosity Gaming (@Luminosity) April 2, 2016
As Terrorists the team once more showed the kind of terrorist play it has become known for at MLG, going on an incredible 8-1 run, giving itself six map points with a 15-9 lead. Much of this was done by the opening kills of s1mple, the 18-year-old Ukrainian who moved to Los Angeles in January to play for Liquid, despite speaking little English. Then it was coldzera's electric AWP highlight silencing the crowd, and Luminosity wound up winning 10 rounds in a row, including the final six of regulation where Liquid combined for three kills out of the available 30.
Most expected the Americans to crack, having thrown away the chance of a lifetime, but they showed up to play on Cache. Hiko had an incredible first half, winning an unthinkable after plant one-on-four, and finishing with a 24-5 K-D difference. Probably the best way to describe how well Luminosity played, though, is that even such a great half helped Liquid only to nine rounds, even though it started 5-0 to begin the half.
Once again Liquid went onto string together rounds, this time a total of six to begin the second half. This now meant having nine map points to try to tie the series. In completing the bar-none most impressive comeback -- in aggregate, including the one on Mirage -- in Counter-Strike history, Luminosity somehow made it back. Its role player TACO stepped up immensely, finishing the game's final 14 rounds with a 23-4 run. On Liquid's side, Hiko disappeared with a score of 19-3 over the same stretch, and up until then impressive adreN showed clear signs of hesitance. Liquid threw it all away, again.
Combined over the course of the series, Liquid's score when at map point was a downright depressing -17. Alternatively, after reaching 15 rounds on each map, the cumulative score was 23-1. No team has ever lost in such a way in Counter-Strike history, not at this stage. But there is a silver-lining buried. Not one person in the world expected Liquid to play this well, least of all with adreN as a stand-in for their fifth, koosta. What was supposed to be a learning experience turned out to tie the continent's best-ever finish at the majors.
But now that it is all said and done, it is time to look forward. Sunday will see Luminosity, fresh off the most impressive comeback wins ever, have a chance to do it all over again with $500,000 on the line. Na`Vi has looked even more dominant so far, losing zero maps en route to its second straight grand final at the majors. These teams have split their most recent offline playoff series, and are considered the top three teams in the world. Who will prevail Sunday, and take a step toward the king's throne?
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