Liquid — Why the StarLadder Berlin Major Favorites Look Unbeatable

This is the first of a series of team previews leading up to the StarLadder Berlin Major. We’ll hopefully be hitting every team in attendance to give you the most up to date info we can about all the teams competing on CS:GO’s biggest stage.

All of these articles will be using stats over the last six months of professional play. When the sample size is big enough to use LAN stats only, I will make note of that. I will try to present the most complete picture of these teams possible, which means these profiles might get lengthy. If you don’t want the fine details, I’ll include a little wrap up at the end, as well as how and when I’d put money on the team at the StarLadder Berlin Major..

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Last Six Months Stats (on LAN)

Record: 87/1/25

Team K/D: 1.16

Map Pool:

• Vertigo – Played 5 times, 100.0% win rate
• Mirage – Played 17 times, 82.4% win rate
• Inferno – Played 17 times, 82.4% win rate
• Overpass – Played 29 times, 79.3% win rate
• Nuke – Played 19 times, 73.7% win rate
• Dust2 – Played 23 times, 69.6% win rate

Player Ratings:

• EliGE – Rating 1.22, K/D 1.21
• Twistzz – Rating 1.19, K/D 1.30
• NAF – Rating 1.19, K/D 1.17
• Stewie2k – Rating 1.09, K/D 1.04
• Nitr0 – Rating 1.08, K/D 1.08

We begin this series with the presumptive favorites, Team Liquid. They’re obviously coming into the Major off a hot streak, winning their last five LAN events, as well as the Intel Grand Slam. They’ve lost just a handful of maps at those events, dropping one map each to Vitality, G2, and Na’Vi over the last month. All three of those happened in best of three’s, which means Liquid hasn’t lost a series in a month.

Liquid have the best argument to win the StarLadder Berlin Major, and it isn’t really close. They’ve hit Astralis levels of domination in the last six months, decimating the field at every opportunity.

Players

EliGE

One of the longest standing members of Team Liquid, EliGE has managed to take another step up in the last year. He is peaking as a player, and hitting new heights in his career. His case for top five players this year is undeniable at this point, provided he doesn’t fall off a cliff in the back half of 2019.

One of the most impressive things about his game , however, is how he allows space for his team. NAF and Twistzz are both having career years as well, while still fitting into this system. EliGE is great at picking his spots and letting his team flourish while still getting his numbers and making a huge impact.

NAF

NAF has been the unsung hero for this group since last year. He’s one of the most effective pure fraggers in the world, routinely putting up performances with a rating over 1.50. With the addition of Stewie, however, he’s been able to frag out even harder, with Stew picking up a lot of the dirty work.

Twistzz

Twistzz has had an interesting year and a half. He was on an upward trajectory early last year, and it looked like he was going to become a superstar. Liquid ended up relegating him to some of the dirty jobs, and he flourished anyway. It seems almost impossible to hold this kid down. This upcoming Major will be a big indicator of whether or not he’ll end up hitting s1mple like status.

Stewie2k

Stewie has been the biggest surprise for me so far with this roster. I did not expect him to take so easily to the pseudo support role he finds himself in, and yet here we are. While his stats have dropped off since joining Liquid, he has never won like this in the rest of his career. Stewie is maybe the most valuable piece of this roster, although it doesn’t show on the box score.

Nitr0

Nitr0, along with Adren, breathed new life into this roster with the pickup of Stewie2k. Liquid has looked incredible for months, off the backs of the system they put in place and nitr0’s surprisingly effective AWP.

Map Pool

Liquid have one of the strongest map pools that we are going to look at in this series. They have almost a 70% win percentage on every map they play, most of which have a high amount of maps played. If I had to pick out a weakness in their pool, it would have to be Vertigo or Nuke.

Vertigo obviously has the least amount of plays, and I don’t know how confident they are on it. A team that’s practiced Vertigo would be able to first pick it in a best of three, as Liquid doesn’t budge on their permaban. While yes, Liquid is undefeated on Vertigo, the map is still largely unexplored at a professional level, and could be exploited by an upset team like cr4zy for example.

The other map I’m worried about for them is Nuke. While their record on it is pretty good, it still seems like they’re shaky at times. Their T side can look lackluster, and they often have to rely on their CT side to put up big numbers. With their lack of pistol success this could lead to their economy being crippled, which could then lead to a collapse.

That’s about all I can say about their weaknesses in the map pool. They’re very solid across the board.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Depth

Perhaps Liquid’s biggest asset is the depth of fraggers on their roster. Any player could go off at any time and carry them through a map, series, or even tournament. The intimidation factor alone is an asset for Liquid. Could you imagine getting into the server, pulling up the scoreboard, and seeing Twistzz, NAF, EliGE, and Stewie2k on the other team? I’m shuddering just thinking about it. NAF, EliGE, and Twistzz have all won MVPs in the last six months, which is just incredible. The only other team with multiple MVP winners from this year is Astralis.

Nitr0

I never would have said this last year, but nitr0 is a crucial piece for this team, and has really come into his own as an AWPer. He, along with their coach Adren, has been calling some of the tightest T sides in Counter Strike, maximizing his teammates skill. He had an incredible performance in Chicago, locking down the A site of Overpass against one of the best teams in the world, that really solidified his place in tier one of Counter Strike for me.

Pistol Rounds

It seems like a silly weakness, and it is a little if I’m being honest, but it’s all we’ve got here. If teams can consistently convert their anti-ecos against Liquid, it’ll put them at a pretty significant round and economy advantage over Liquid.

Unfortunately for everyone else, Liquid has an almost ungodly ability to convert eco rounds. Their deagle buys are better than some teams full buys, and Twistzz especially routinely rips off heads with nothing but the hand cannon.

TL;DR

Liquid are the best team in the world now, and it isn’t close. A five tournament streak isn’t something you see every year, and in some ways it just wouldn’t feel right if they didn’t win the upcoming Major. They have the best map pool, the best players, maybe even the best IGL.

At the same time, it’s unlikely there will be much value in betting on Liquid. This is still Counter Strike, and upsets happen. I’d recommend putting your money elsewhere.

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