The first round of Group A had seen Liquid overcome NRG but fail to get past EnVyUs. The rematch for a final spot in the playoff stage was as close as possible, but it was NRG who walked away with the win over four maps.

The map ban process left the exact same pool as in first round of groups: Dorado, Hollywood, and Numbani. The previous day Liquid had beaten NRG in straight maps and not needed to get to Numbani. Both teams felt comfortable returning to the same map pool; NRG had clearly reviewed the VODs and identified small mistakes to improve on while Liquid were riding the confidence of their win the day before. The difference in styles between the two teams, Liquid tight and defensively sound with NRG aggressive and experimental, had been tempered by the experiences of the previous match.

Dorado

Both teams began with a Reinhardt, Zarya, Mei composition with Ana and before any ultimates were on the board NRG sped in with great icewall placement and took fountain. Seconds afterwards as the Nano-Blossom was live Gods dove from heights to destroy another teamfight and let his team roll forwards to open the powerplant with five minutes left on the clock - they had barely been contested. A single won teamfight and some crucial play for id’s Mei let Liquid scrape together a defense on last, and with the huge spawn advantage they were able to hold for another 3 minutes despite losing fight after fight. NRG could not be stopped though and looked amazing as they capped with 88 seconds left.

NRG tried a monstrously aggressive forward defense to keep Liquid pinned in spawn, as they had the day before, but rapha and his team burst out and chased all the way past the fountain to blow NRG’s defense out of the water. With the height advantage around second, enigma was able to hit an effective Graviton that got them back into the game and it took Liquid a long time to crack the barrage of defensive ultimates. They had two minutes to push all the way through the plant and force the map into overtime but the final bend was too much for them to overcome. NRG wiped them to walk away with the map and flip the series on its head.

Hollywood

Liquid chose to take the map to Hollywood. They’d won the map before against NRG but that had been the same for Dorado as well. If they couldn’t turn the series around and replicate their performance from earlier in the groups Liquid would be out of the Overwatch Open.

They began on defense but got obliterated as soon as the ultimates were live in the second push, letting NRG into the streets. Despite a good wipe early on Liquid used too many of their ultimates and got stuck in a cycle of losing every other teamfight. A 50/50 split of the fights meant that NRG were able to push the payload a huge amount whenever they cleared the path, but it took them a long time to do so. In the final stretch they were left with 90 seconds to push - it looked so possible for Seagull’s band of men until the last few metres where they didn’t have enough time to regroup and were beaten back by spawners. Final score on offense: 76.48m through the studio.

Liquid came storming out of the gates but overextended, wasting a Nanoboost on mesr and a Blizzard from id. They kept the pressure up and used the spawn advantage to win the repush without ults though, with rapha doing a ton of damage on Zarya. Liquid’s raw aggression and unpredictability made NRG so unsure when to commit ultimates, so even though they had an advantage in that department they were pushed back all the way into the studio before finally being able to commit. Liquid had over three minutes to push the payload further than 76.48m, but it took them over a minute to fix their ultimate synchronisation and get an opportunity to push. Once they were set up they executed with perfection though, driving the cart into the final stretch and brute-forcing it home on the end of mesr’s hammer. The comeback had been achieved and Liquid forced it to a third map - a map that hadn’t been seen in the previous fixture, Numbani.

Numbani

Seagull had already made his Numbani Bastion strategy famous after a huge play against Splyce earlier in the tournament. When it popped up on the first point defense id destroyed him on Pharah immediately, dominating alongside Dahang on Mercy to get the first cap. It prompted an immediate switch from NRG, as they fielded a Tracer, Genji, and Hog to counter. It worked for a couple of fights until id and Dahang swapped to Reaper and Ana, carving up NRG and allowing azk to shine on McCree. Liquid kept up an impressive attack to pounce across the line with just over 30 seconds on the clock.

Do or die for NRG. enigma bought room on Winston to get a flawless first dive and they snowballed it forwards through the first half of the map in under a minute. Just before checkpoint two Liquid managed to rally and pushed their defense up over a series of fights to buy as much space as possible. NRG gave up three fights in a row to build an ultimate advantage to reply and took the second checkpoint after a single successful push. Gods and Seagull put the team on their back for the final stretch and decimated everyone in their sights to get the payload over the line with the exact same time left in their bank as Liquid.

NRG fixed mistakes from the day before to make it incredibly close. Photo credit: NRG

The end of Numbani seemed scripted. Everyone had thought the game between these two teams would be close but surely not inseparable. Both NRG and Liquid dug deep to completely lock each other out on the first point. With only a minute for each team to attack it wasn’t possible for either of the rosters to get the upper hand and it had to go to a final decider map of best-of-three Nepal.

The nervous energy for each team was palpable in the studio as their tournament lives were on the line.

Nepal

Liquid came out with a Zenyatta from Dahang but other than that the compostions were mirrored. Dummy did a huge amount of work in the first fight to give them the capture on Temple, Nanoboosting Gods to snowball their capture time higher and higher. Seagull gave a masterclass on Zarya as well to shut down Liquid and the whole NRG team looked incredible on Control.

Seagull handed the Zarya responsibilities over to enigma as he picked up Mei, but the beginning of the round on Sanctum was defined by Dahang. He picked up Ana to Nanoboost mesr to great effect. Liquid had some excellent Nanos into Gravitons to keep the fights going their way and the icewalls often damaged NRG’s teamfight more than it helped.

Both teams’ potential last round in the tournament was on Village.

NRG started strong with Seagull again on Zarya and enigma zipping around on Tracer. The composition worked like a dream for the fan favourite team as they took an early lead before losing control to a Nanoboost from Liquid. It quickly flipped back in favour of NRG as they utilised their Blossom and Pulse Bomb perfectly to blow away Liquid and beat them 2-1.

An unbelievably close game between two very even teams, but it was NRG who escaped from Group A alongside EnVyUs.