Team Liquid has been one of the most confusing teams in the CSGO scene. Having some of the best players in NA, they’ve never lived up to the potential. And outside of issues we may not know, there’s really no apparent reason why. Fortunately, in recent events, they have shown some amazing things. Let’s look through their last two events and see what exactly went right for the team.
ESG Tour Mykonos 2017
Group Stage
Starting in the group stage, TL faced BIG on Overpass. There wasn’t too much on the positive side of things to take out of the match. Both teams made many mistakes and Liquid just so happened to make less of them. They then went on to face Virtus.Pro in the winners match, where VP took down Liquid somewhat convincingly on Mirage. The groups ended pretty uneventfully, as TL took down BIG quite easily in a Bo3.
Playoffs
The semifinal against SK Gaming is where things get interesting for Liquid. Coming into the event, many expected that SK would take it with little to no competition. But, Liquid had something to say for themselves. In a surprising manner, Liquid took down SK Gaming without much competition from the Brazilian side, who, off the back of a few clutches and surprise rounds, only put up 12 and 10 rounds respectively in two maps.
Moving on to the grand finals, Liquid faced mousesports. Unfortunately for Liquid, Tomáš “oskar” Šťastný decided that he wanted to win the game himself and had a pretty easy time doing so. All maps aside from Liquid’s second map win were pretty one sided, with mousesports taking the last map in an even more dominant fashion.
After the event
After the event, a couple things that Liquid could take away were their result and beating SK in a best of three. It was a huge improvement over what Liquid had shown earlier in the year. Everyone, including themselves, knew it as well. Liquid was on the rise.
ESL One New York 2017
Group Stage
The group stage for New York started off with Liquid losing a Bo1 to Astralis and moving into the lower bracket to face Virtus.Pro in a Bo3. In impressive form against the NA killers, Liquid took the best of three, losing one map and moving on to face Astralis once again.
In the second match against Astralis, no one could’ve predicted Liquid beating them in a best of three, but they did just that to move on to the playoffs.
Playoffs
TL ended up in the semifinals against SK Gaming once again. This time though, the Brazilians would put up a much better fight than before in Greece. Liquid took the lead in the series, taking the first map, but SK immediately took the second with dominance. The last map in the series was the most exciting, being close from start to finish. But, in the end, Liquid took the series and moved on to their second grand final in a row.
The final was played against FaZe Clan, who showed absolute dominance in their previous matches, and continued in the final where they took all three maps sending Liquid home before claiming the trophy.
After the event
After ESL One New York, Liquid should be proud of their performance. Winning three Bo3s against some of the hardest teams to play in that format of a match, Liquid is showing to become one of the best teams in the world after a year of almost no success and surprisingly very few roster changes. Liquid has only positives to take from the event and hopefully will come back even stronger at ELEAGUE in two weeks.
Featured image via Dreamhack.
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