After barely surviving through Stage 2, Liquid have been eliminated from the StarLadder Budapest Major 2025 in Stage 3. With losses to Spirit and The MongolZ, the team was hoping for another tough run from 0-3 to 3-2. But regional rivals Passion UA put a quick stop to that hope with a strong 2-0 win.
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Team rosters
Here are the rosters for Liquid and Passion UA at the StarLadder Budapest Major 2025.
| Team Liquid | Passion UA |
|---|---|
| Keith “NAF” Markovic | Vladyslav “Kvem” Korol |
| Roland “ultimate” Tomkowiak | Ioannis ‘Johnny’ “JT” Theodosiou |
| Guy “NertZ” Iluz | Michael “Grim” Wince |
| Kamil “siuhy” Szkaradek | Håkon “hallzerk” Fjærli |
| Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski | Nicholas “nicx” Lee |
| Viktor “flashie” Tamás Bea (C) | Tiaan “T.c” Coertzen (C) |
Map veto
With a domestic rivalry playing out at the Major stage, the veto often becomes the first battlefield. But both teams stuck to their classic vetoes of Ancient and Overpass.
- Passion UA removed Ancient
- Liquid removed Overpass
- Passion UA picked Train
- Liquid picked Mirage
- Liquid removed Inferno
- Passion UA removed Dust2
- Nuke was left over
Match recap—Team Liquid vs. Passion UA
Train – Liquid fall flat after 9-3 headstart – 11-13
B site was the site of choice for the start of the match with both teams battling in the hallways consistently. Liquid came out on top thanks to EliGE and NertZ, getting it an early lead 3-0. Once the full buy came out though, the B attack became a lot more potent, running over NertZ and giving Passion UA its first round. Once the initial fray was concluded though, Liquid lead the match 4-2.
From there, Liquid locked Passion UA out of the bombsites, with just a single round going JT and co.’s way. IGL siuhy himself was on top of the leaderboards with 14 frags in the first half. Swapping sites though completely took out the wind from Liquid’s sails. Nicx and Grim were running rampant through the halls, and completely shut down any attack from the Liquid side.
Passion UA got all the way up to 8-9 before Liquid was able to stop the hemorrhage. But hitting double digits first wasn’t cause for celebration. Passion UA just continued to control the map on the CT side. Despite 20 kills from siuhy, his stars were just not there alongside him. And Kvem closed the map out as nicx mowed down Liquid one last time to close the map out 13-11.
Mirage – CT sides rule supreme – 10-13
Passion UA had gotten truly warmed up on Train and rolled onto Mirage with confidence. Setting up an impenetrable defense, it routed Liquid for six consecutive rounds. Finally, Liquid managed to get one back, but an incredible smoke defuse from nicx shut down any hopes of a comeback.
When a CT side is truly feeling themselves, they can simply annihilate the Terrorists. And that was exactly what happened across Mirage, setting up a massive 10-2 lead at halftime for Passion UA. But it turned out the game was going to be CT sided for both teams. Liquid itself locked in the pistol round, then went on a massive streak of seven rounds as NAF truly found his footing.
However, Liquid simply did not have enough rounds in the first half to get on even footing, and Passion UA eliminated it from the major with a 13-10 win on Mirage.
Liquid’s run across the StarLadder Budapest Major was filled with disasters. Stage 2 and Stage 3 both started with 0-2 days in the best of ones, setting the team up for failure. It got through the first time by the skin of its teeth. But repeating that against the much stronger opposition in Stage 3 was going to be nearly impossible.
Liquid’s problem once again stems from inconsistency. Despite having a wealth of talent on its roster, none of the stars step up consistently. Unlike ZywOo, and Donk, nobody on the Liquid side can be guaranteed to top the leaderboard. And even more painfully, its recent swap of EliGE and Twistzz has clearly sent a superstar FaZe’s way. How Liquid finds its way out of this situation will be one of the big questions of the offseason.
