Virtus.pro have booked their spot in the ESL One Cologne playoffs after defeating Team Liquid 16-12 in Group C's winners' match.

The match began with Virtus.pro winning the pistol round, following a quad kill from Paweł "⁠byali⁠" Bieliński as he stopped Liquid's B push, and they followed that up with two anti-eco rounds to start off the game with a 3-0 lead. After buying up, Liquid instantly got two rounds on the board, leaving Virtus.pro with no money to work with, but they were caught off-guard by Wiktor "⁠TaZ⁠" Wojtas - the only Polish player with a weapon in his hands - as he picked up four kills.

Virtus.pro regained control of proceedings and increased their lead to 6-2, but for the remainder of the half it was all about Team Liquid, who got seven more rounds to take a solid lead going into the second half.

Virtus.pro through to Major playoffs 

The Polish team came out of the break looking determined to turn the game around as they won the first three rounds to equalise the score at 9-9.

When we entered the gun rounds, however, the impetus of the game changed considerably as Liquid got three rounds in a row, the second of which thanks to a spectacular 1vs2 clutch by Josh "⁠jdm64⁠" Marzano. But then Virtus.pro, powered by Janusz "⁠Snax⁠" Pogorzelski, put together a string of rounds to secure a 16-12 triumph as Liquid struggled to keep up with the pace of their opponents.

ESL One Cologne 2016Best of 1 LiquidMatchpage 12 16 6th July 2016 Virtus.pro 12Cobblestone 16

Virtus.pro	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Janusz 'Snax' PogorzelskiSnax	23 - 15	+8	78.7	1.29
Wiktor 'TaZ' WojtasTaZ	23 - 20	+3	90.7	1.26
Filip 'NEO' KubskiNEO	20 - 23	-3	90.9	1.17
Paweł 'byali' Bielińskibyali	18 - 20	-2	73.6	1.02
Jarosław 'pashaBiceps' JarząbkowskipashaBiceps	15 - 18	-3	52.2	0.89

Liquid	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostylievs1mple	27 - 21	+6	103.8	1.51
Josh 'jdm64' Marzanojdm64	18 - 19	-1	66.8	1.11
Nick 'nitr0' Cannellanitr0	24 - 23	+1	87.5	1.08
Spencer 'Hiko' MartinHiko	11 - 17	-6	51.6	0.82
Jonathan 'EliGE' JablonowskiEliGE	16 - 19	-3	57.9	0.81

Wiktor 'TaZ' Wojtas Age: 30 Team: Virtus.pro Rating 1.0: 1.02 Maps played: 1011 KPR: 0.70 DPR: 0.67 Janusz 'Snax' Pogorzelski Age: 23 Team: Virtus.pro Rating 1.0: 1.08 Maps played: 826 KPR: 0.73 DPR: 0.65 Josh 'jdm64' Marzano Age: 26 Team: Liquid Rating 1.0: 1.07 Maps played: 353 KPR: 0.72 DPR: 0.65 Paweł 'byali' Bieliński Age: 22 Team: Virtus.pro Rating 1.0: 1.04 Maps played: 849 KPR: 0.71 DPR: 0.65