Liquid Continue Winning Ways BLAST Pro Series LA 2019
After their recent win in the BLAST Pro Series LA 2019, Team Liquid has continued their successful run of form by winning the Intel Extreme Masters Season XIV in Chicago over the weekend.
Team Liquid went on to meet ENCE in the grand final where they took them down in a 3-0 clean sweep, something which Liquid seems to be doing with relative easy in the pro Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) scene.
Liquid walks away with $125,000 for the top spot from the IEM, after having just claimed another $125,000 from the BLAST Pro Series. It’s turning out to be a rather productive month for the North American team. Playing on home turf for the Americans in Chicago, Liquid took a commanding 2-0 lead in the grand final by winning 16-2 on Overpass and 16-3 on Nuke. When it was all said and done in the end, ENCE managed to make the third and final game a tough one, pushing Liquid right until the end on Inferno, 16-14.
It was another memorable competition which saw every member of the team contribute in more ways than one. The final game of the best of three series, saw Jonathan ‘EliGE’ Jablonowski rack up a near 30-bomb, with a number of clutch kills that saw Liquid win rounds. Jablonowski also grabbed 26 frags in the second map, with Keith ‘NAF’ Markovic and Russel ‘Twistzz’ Van Dulken also contributing across all three maps.
Liquid’s dominance was evident throughout the entire tournament, as their semi final game against Vitality went 16-11 and 16-9 on Dust 2 and Overpass respectively, and Liquid also topped the group stages in Group A by winning 2 straight series games against Envy and G2.
One thing that other teams can take away from the IEM this time is that Liquid are not entirely unbeatable as was the case against G2. On Dust 2, G2 managed to get the better of Liquid for the one map, beating them 16-13.
The final standings were:
- Team Liquid
- ENCE
- Team Vitality
- MIBR
Team Liquid will now look to recreate their dominance in CS esports as they mark the StarLadder Berlin Major as the next big step with $1 million prize pool up for grabs. There will be more than enough of a break for the players before then, as the IEM is likely the last big event before the Major. Hopefully for Liquid fans, this run of form can continue.
The StarLadder Major will consist of three different stages. The first will be the Challengers Stage running from 23 August to 26 August. In it, 16 teams will fight it out in a Swiss format tournament with the top 8 teams heading into the Legends Stage. Here, the already existing Legends, including the likes of Team Liquid, Astralis, ENCE, NaVi and more, will battle it out in a similar Swiss style system.
The bottom 8 teams of the Legends Stage will be eliminated from the competition with the top 8 heading into the final Champions Stage. This will be a single-elimination bracket tournament hosted
