T1 and Team Liquid eliminated Trace Esports and Sentinels in their Swiss stage games on day four of Masters Bangkok
T1 steamroll through Trace Esports with a 2-0 win
Day four of Masters Bangkok 2025 opened out with an elimination game between T1 and Trace Esports. Both teams had faced off in the off-season, with T1 finding a 2-0 win then. The map veto saw Trace pick out Lotus, a map they had been undefeated on this year until their loss in their first game at Masters Bangkok to G2.
Despite this record, T1 looked more than prepared to demolish them, racing off to a 9-3 half, with iZu on the Cypher going 15-5, denying Trace round win after round win. After the sideswap, with Trace losing the pistol, T1 closed the game out 13-3, taking away their opponent’s map pick. The MVP was iZu who had an ACS of 300 with 20 kills while playing Cypher.
Map two was T1’s choice of Haven, where they once again were able to have a strong start, getting to 4-0 before Trace opened their account. Kai started finding more opening picks, and both teams traded round wins till the half concluded at 6-6. T1 won the next pistol too, but the anti-eco was stolen away. T1 refused to make any more mistakes though, and only lost a single round before T1 eliminated the Chinese representatives 13-8 from Masters Bangkok.
T1 BuZz was the MVP for the series with 40 kills across both maps and six first kills. T1 will now face DRX in an elimination game tomorrow, with the winner qualifying for the playoffs and the loser headed home.
Team Liquid send Sentinels packing in a 2-1 thriller
The second game of the day had North American squad Sentinels playing against EMEA’s Team Liquid. Both second seeds of their region, they had one chance left to stay in Bangkok, and neither team was ready to go home. The series opened on Lotus, a map chosen by SEN, where they were running the double controller and Vyse, compared to TL’s Cypher and solo-Omen. The first half had SEN start on defense, with a pistol win they used to maintain an advantage in the half with, culminating in a 7-5 lead.
Despite Liquid netting a pistol win once they swapped over to defense and tieing things up 7-7, SEN found their flow once they had rifles in hand, converting six straight rounds to end the map 13-7. N4RRATE, zekken, and bang all had an ACS of 230+, and were key players in SEN’s win although the highest stats on the server for the map belonged to nats.
Liquid started off map two, Abyss, with a pistol win they were able to stretch into a 5-3, then 7-5 lead as they opened on defense. They were able to extend this lead further to 9-7, but SEN were able to come back and keep things close, as the score went to 11-11. Liquid found match point first, but SEN were able to keep the map going as they pushed it to OT. Liquid got to match point three more times, until they finally won Abyss 16-14 to push the series to the decider map Bind. The MVP for Liquid was Keiko on the Omen. The hometown buff seemed real, with him having 29 kills, an ACS of 247, and a 90% KAST.
Bind was a map which Liquid had played four times this year, while SEN had only played it once. Liquid won their fourth pistol of the day and the bonus round to boot, snowballing their way to a 11-1 start in the first half, with nats finding a 4K and two 3Ks in the half. The writing was on the wall when Liquid won the last pistol of the day, with Keiko again able to find a 4K to send SEN packing and keeping the EMEA reps alive.
The MVP for the map and series was nats, who had an ACS of 305, a +26 kill differential, and 66 kills in three maps — the highest on the server — all while IGL-ing. Team Liquid will fight G2 tomorrow for the last spot in Masters Bangkok playoffs..
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Cover photo courtesy of VALORANT Champions Tour
