With Liquid beating Vitality and G2 in the online stage, the average IQ (read: NA) fan might’ve been thinking Liquid were back, back.

As it happens, they might just be back, which is good, just not quite as good.

Admittedly, they were far more competitive against Spirit than we thought they’d be. 13-7 on Dust2 and 13-5 on Anubis - largely thanks to donk going donk mode on map two - there were a number of rounds that Liquid could have won and made the games look far closer on paper.

For once, the scoreline actually doesn’t tell the full story.

Overall, it was a game Spirit were expected to win, so it’s good for them that they did. The main takeaway, though, is that with minimal practice, Liquid put up a strong fight. That’s a great sign for them moving forward.

The harder game to judge was MOUZ vs 3DMAX. A 2-1 win in favour of MOUZ, the aura-not-havers did it by committee, with strong performances from torzsi and PR in their two map wins.

However, the latter of those two names did massively struggle on Dust2. We’d like to point the finger at Spinx for this, and he didn’t offer much help to PR, but there were a lot of rookie mistakes from the former GamerLegion star on the B Bombsite, and considering how often the Fr-nch hit that site, you’d hope its anchor would end the half better than 2-8.

3DMAX then put up a much better fight than MOUZ should’ve allowed them to on Nuke, with MOUZ finally getting it over the line at 22-18. They did then capitulate on Inferno, which ended 13-3 thanks to a 2,09-rated PR, but there were positive signs throughout the series.

So, a 2-1 win for MOUZ where we come away feeling more positive about the losers than MOUZ themselves? How does that work?

Well, we’re just still not convinced by this MOUZ project. xertioN might be maintaining his fragging, and torzsi looks to be getting back to his best, too. But - and this is a big but - PR is still making some very rookie mistakes, and xelex looks a long way away from being at the consistent level a team like MOUZ needs him to be. Add on that Spinx is, well, Spinx, and it’s not as positive as it seems.

Oh well, at least JBOEN plays today.