Liquid Sweep Metizport to Advance in the Esports World Cup 2026 Qualifier

EliGE led Liquid with 42 kills and a 1.42 rating across wins on Cache and Inferno.

0 11 2 minutes read

Liquid Sweep Metizport to Advance in the Esports World Cup 2026 Qualifier

Liquid beat Metizport 2-0 in the Group 12 winners’ match of the Esports World Cup 2026 Open Qualifier, advancing to the next stage while Metizport fell into the Decider Match. The best-of-three took place in Paris as part of the event’s $100,000 LAN, with Liquid winning Cache 13-9 and Inferno 13-10. The result and series details are recorded in the HLTV match record.

Liquid closes out both map picks

Liquid selected Cache after banning Ancient, while Metizport chose Inferno after removing Dust2. Liquid also banned Nuke, Metizport banned Anubis, and Mirage was left unplayed after Liquid secured the first two maps.

Cache stayed close through the opening half, with Liquid taking a 7-5 lead before finishing the map 13-9. Inferno gave Liquid more room early. Its defense produced a 9-3 halftime advantage, and the team held on as Metizport added seven rounds on the other side of the break.

EliGE tops the series statistics

EliGE powered Liquid’s win with a 42-30 kill-death record, 99.6 ADR, and a 1.42 rating. F1KU was Metizport’s top performer at 36-25 with an 85.9 ADR and a 1.38 rating, but Liquid had enough production around EliGE to close out both maps.

Player	K-D	ADR	Rating
EliGE	42-30	99.6	1.42
NAF	28-27	76.9	1.08
Jorko	32-20	63.4	1.06
malbsMd	25-33	67.0	1.01
JT	17-25	43.1	0.78
F1KU	36-25	85.9	1.38
Plopski	28-31	75.3	0.97
stanislaw	26-34	56.2	0.92
forsyy	25-25	50.3	0.82
MaiL09	20-30	63.4	0.77

The individual map numbers were close at the top. F1KU posted a 1.63 rating on Cache, just ahead of EliGE’s 1.62. On Inferno, NAF led Liquid with a 1.40 rating, while Plopski produced Metizport’s best mark at 1.35. The Cache detailed stats and Inferno detailed stats provide the map-by-map breakdown, with timestamped VODs for Cache and Inferno.

Projected VRS movement keeps both teams in place

The August 8 VRS projection kept Liquid at No. 18 despite a projected gain of 25 points, bringing the team to 1,621 points. Metizport remained at No. 73 in the projection, with a three-point loss leaving it at 1,128 points.

Those figures are forecasts rather than confirmed ranking changes. The VRS updates once per month, and the projection may not include every factor used in the final calculation.

Share your thoughts on Liquid’s clean sweep in the comments, and follow the site on X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram, Steam, and Telegram.

Counter-Strike 2 is a free-to-play multiplayer tactical first-person shooter developed and published by Valve. Released in September 2023, it is the fifth main entry in the Counter-Strike series and serves as a direct replacement for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive on Steam. Two teams, Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists, compete in objective-based rounds across modes such as bomb defusal and hostage rescue. Built on the Source 2 engine, the game introduced volumetric smoke physics, revised weapon handling, and a new sub-tick server architecture. It inherited all cosmetic items from its predecessor and features both a map-specific Competitive mode and a numerically ranked Premier mode.