SK Gaming has defeated Team Liquid 2-0 in the ESL One: Cologne Grand finals to win the roster’s second consecutive Major.
Things were close in the first half of map one, with SK leading 8-7 at the half, but things didn’t stay close for long. Liquid crumbled in the face of SK’s CT side on Train and couldn’t take a single round in the second half.
Cobble was even more lopsided, with SK finishing the first half ahead 10-5. While Liquid found a few round wins thanks to Josh “jdm64” Marzano and Alexsandr “s1mple” Kostyliev’s, it wasn’t enough. Once SK was back on the T side, they ran all over Liquid on what is considered to be their best map. Liquid took three rounds in a row to kick off the half, before eventually taking the map 16-6
The win comes months after SK’s roster defeated Team Liquid 2-0 at the MLG Columbus Major semifinals while playing for Luminosity. Luminosity then went on to defeat Natus Vincere 2-0 in the Grand Finals to win the tournament. This is Liquid’s highest placement at a Major and the team will be given a direct invite to the next major as Legends.
Liquid surprised everyone with a 2-1 win over Na`Vi in ESL One: Cologne’s quarterfinals, and followed it up with a 2-0 sweep to knock out Fnatic in the semifinals. The team looked incredibly strong going into the Grand Finals, but SK was favored to win the tournament from the beginning.
SK previously eliminated Virtus.pro and FlipSid3 Tactics, with Marcelo “coldzera” David having the best performance of any player at the tournament. While he did not get to make history with another play like his jumping AWP 4K in Columbus, he did lead the field with the highest player rating according to HLTV, the highest KD differential, the highest damage and damage differential per round, the second most kills, the most kills per round, the highest number of rounds with more than one kill and the least deaths per round. Cold finished Map 2 with a 2.11 KDR, with 19 kills and 9 deaths.
