Team Liquid finally grabbed its first win in a major Dota 2 tournament by getting the championship at the ESL One Germany 2020. Liquid beat out Natus Vincere 3–1 in the finals. With the win, Liquid gets to take home $150,000 in prize money.
There are two impressive things that resulted from this win. The first is that this is the first big win of the new Liquid roster since they were signed on last year. For quite some time, Liquid was composed of a team led by Kuro "KuroKy" Salehi Takhasomi that eventually managed to win TI7. KuroKy and the gang ultimately left Liquid to form their own team. This resulted in the organization signing up a new roster of members. The new roster is composed of:
- Michael "miCKe" Vu
- Max "qojqva" Bröcker
- Samuel "Boxi" Svahn
- Tommy "Taiga" Le
- Aydin "iNSaNiA" Sarkohi
The second impressive thing is that the win appeared to be a homage to the KuroKy-led roster. Meaning, after dropping to the Lower Bracket, Liquid managed to crawl its way to the Grand Final and eventually win the series against Na’Vi. If you look back on what happened in TI7, it’s pretty much the same pattern. Heck, they even went against Team Secret and won.
Surprises in the Playoffs
Before we look into Liquid’s journey and what happened in the Grand Final, let’s pause for a quick recap of what happened in the tournament. The Group Stage was what you would expect with many of the region’s top teams getting wins and earning spots in the Playoffs. That said, the Playoffs were another story.
In the first round of the Upper Bracket, two-time TI champion OG got dropped to the Lower Bracket by Na’Vi. Meanwhile, rising star Nikolay "Nikobaby" Nikolov and Alliance got swept 0–2 by Viking.gg. Then we also had Team Nigma and Liquid headed to the Lower Bracket.
There were even more surprises as Alliance showed how far they have grown and managed to beat OG 2–0 and eliminate them from the tournament. Liquid, meanwhile, went against Nigma, a team composed of former Liquid players. If you’ve been keeping count, that’s two former TI champions getting eliminated.
Then there’s also Secret going to the Lower Bracket, courtesy of a beating from mudgolems. In their first game, mudgolems pretty much destroyed Secret. The second game was closer, but mudgolems managed to seal the victory.
Na’Vi Snatches Grand Final Spot
Initially, mudgolems appeared to unstoppable, or so they thought. Not only were they able to secure a spot on the Upper Bracket Final, but they were also facing Na’Vi, a team mudgolems had beaten in the Gorup Stage. This time however, Na’Vi showed just how good they are by winning two games and ending the match.
Road to the Grand Final
For Liquid, they had an “okay” performance in the Group Stage, and as mentioned, got dropped to the Lower Bracket. However, it was here that the team showed that they came to win and eliminated Nigma. It looked like stepping out of the former roster’s shadow was the push that they needed. Liquid pretty much rolled over their opponents to get to the Grand Final. We say that because they beat their opponents 2–0. These were Vikin.gg, Secret, and mudgolems.
In the Grand Final, Liquid pretty much overwhelmed Na’Vi in the first two games to finish both of them at just a little over 30 minutes. In the first game, for example, Na’Vi was limited to a total of five team kills. Na’Vi did fight back to get an impressive win in the third game and put a brief stop to Liquid’s momentum.
It was clear of course that Na’Vi wanted to force a fifth game. Liquid had none of that and got things going from the start of game four. Liquid eventually got a sizeable lead, with Na’Vi calling it GG just before the 35-minute mark.
With this win, it is indeed exciting to see just where Liquid is headed to next. It also has become even clearer that the EU/CSI regions have many of the top teams in Dota 2 esports. The question now is just how ready is Liquid for the next phase of their journey? Will this be a one-off thing or will they be able to do even more than the KuroKy-led roster? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
