Betclic came back from a 0-1 deficit to defeat Liquid in the grand finals of the Swedish LAN tournament Stake Pulse Beat I (Cache 11-13, Anubis 13-10, Nuke 13-7), claiming the tournament title.
With this victory, the Polish team climbed 34 spots on the VRS to enter the top 50, while also providing a significant morale boost for their upcoming Esports World Cup open qualifiers campaign, which begins on Friday.
Conversely, the loss to this Polish team was a significant blow to Liquid. After bringing in Jorko and JT during the off-season, the squad showed promising momentum early on, but they exhausted their stamina in the finals and, with barely any time to regroup, had to head straight to Paris for the same EWC qualifier.
This roster previously defeated Vitality and G2 online to successfully advance to the BLAST Bounty Season 2 finals, and had just lost to Spirit on LAN the day before arriving in Stockholm, before facing a challenging start to the event.
After a narrow victory over Betclic in the Group B Winners' Bracket, followed by clean sweeps against 9INE and fnatic, they maintained their upward momentum, resulting in a strong overall performance for Liquid and propelling them into the VRS top 20. However, in their Grand Finals rematch, it was Betclic—who had comfortably defeated Acend and Johnny Speeds in the playoffs—that ultimately emerged victorious.
Liquid's North American trio dominated the opening phase on Cache, with the team once holding a 9-2 lead. However, after throwing away a 5v2 situation at the end of the half, they began dropping rounds. After switching sides, they narrowly lost four clutch rounds, ultimately barely clinching the map 13-11. NAF stated after the match that they "just choked" and "should have won it 13-6".
The same was true on Anubis, where Liquid once led 6-2 on the attacking side. After recovering from losses in the pistol and transition rounds of the second half, they built a 10-8 lead, but this time they failed to capitalize on the opportunity. Losing the pistol round sealed their fate, as Betclic mounted a strong comeback thanks to several multi-kills from Prism and a 1v2 clutch by Qlocuu, ultimately securing a 13-10 victory and forcing a decider on Nuke.
On Nuke, Betclic took control from the start, with Prism and fr3nd consistently breaking down Liquid's standard setups and tactical execution to build an 8-2 lead. After switching sides, Liquid looked to mount a comeback, but Prism secured a triple kill in the pistol round, successfully winning a 2v4 and dashing their hopes. Betclic then reached match point and closed out the match a few rounds later.