Team Liquid beat GIANTX 3-0 to win VCT EMEA Stage 2 in comfortable fashion

Team Liquid has beaten GIANTX to become VCT EMEA Stage 2 champions, winning the organisation’s second regional VALORANT title. The 3-0 victory has secured TL a first seed at next month’s VALORANT Champions, while GX will head to Paris as EMEA’s second seed.

TL become VCT EMEA Stage 2 champions, convingly

Team Liquid backed up their position as grand finals favourites by convincingly winning the best-of-five final. Though not a total stomp over their Spanish opponents, TL’s win never looked in doubt as they controlled the series at almost all points.

The only scare Liquid faced on the day came in the early stages of the opening map, Bind — their own pick. Four opening round wins for GX seemed to indicate that an upset was possible, and TL could be forgiven for getting worried if they saw the fashion in which their opponents embarrassed BBL the day prior having also been underdogs on that occasion.

But this time it wasn’t to be. TL grew into the game, clawing back to 5-7 at halftime, before a second-half back and forth quickly became one-way traffic as Liquid six consecutive rounds to take the first map 13-9.

Team Liquid made it one better in the second map, winning 13-9 on GX’s Lotus. This too started with opening round wins for GIANTX, who ended the first half 7-5 up. Six back-to-back rounds then put Liquid on the verge of victory, and despite a couple of subsequent rounds for GX, TL kept their cool to go 2-0 up.

The third map, Liquid’s Sunset, was the most comfortable win of the three. The first map in which TL controlled from the outset, the eventual champions were level 6-6 at half time and followed that up with four straight round wins in the second. A minor back and forth saw GX claim a handful more rounds, but Liquid avoided any sort of momentum from their opponents to close out at 13-8.

NAts crowned grand finals MVP

Veteran nAts’ ability as a fragging IGL, arguably the world’s best, is nothing new. The former Gambit player was in top form throughout the final, ending the series with a 60/48/22 scoreline, +12 kill-death differential, and 251 ACS, more than anybody else on the server in spite of his captaincy role.