Team Liquid: the American pioneers

As BLAST Premiere: World Finals approaches, the 2021 professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Season is about to reach its conclusion. After a rocky start due to the online-only restrictions of 2020, this year has been a true test for all the athletes as they scrambled to readjust back to offline events. A challenge for some and a boon to others, this season will nevertheless be remembered as a breath of fresh air after last year’s suffocating restrictions.

As the organizations re-learn how to play on LANs and leave behind the great coaching exploit controversy of 2020, the CS:GO professional scene settles into a new era. Dubbed as the year of CIS Counter Strike – for a good reason – we see the likes of Natus Vincere and Gambit Gaming battle it out across the entire year, with Natus Vincere ultimately emerging as the absolute champions. While NaVi are busy forming their dynasty, the French Team Vitality plays catch up to the reigning champs, nevertheless going toe-to-toe with the CIS squad. Then, we see G2, Heroic, Astralis, Ninjas and Pyjamas, and even Virtus.pro with their surprisingly excellent performance in IEM Winter 2021. All these teams have had ups and downs – we all do – but they’re hungry for victories and it shows.

Among these European teams, a sole North American squad stands. While their opponents are battling for trophies, Team Liquid seemingly fights for survival. As Liquid end the season awaiting massive roster changes, it is unclear what the future holds for the once-star collective. Their quiet showing throughout the 2021 Season is certainly not a good indicator of the team’s potential to those who know their story.

The team is on the brink of sweeping changes entering 2022. While the swaps are pretty much imminent given the player’s inputs and opinions, we can only speculate what new form will Liquid take, and what results will these changes bring, and if Liquid will escape the curse of mediocrity again. Rumor has it that the team’s former IGL nitr0 is joining the team in 2022, but then again, that is just a rumor for now.

But it hasn’t always been this way. The North American powerhouse with decades of history, Team Liquid used to stand proud at the pedestal. The NA-based organization’s contributions to the development of professional esports – and just gaming as a whole – are undeniable. Love them or hate them, be you a NA fan or EU enjoyer, we can all agree on one thing: without Team Liquid, there would be no esports as we know it.

Humble beginnings

Even looking back, it is still hard to believe that today’s multi-million worth esports organization connecting a dozen of different titles started off as a comfy community hub. Tracing its history back to the cult RTS and the alma mater of all things esports, StarCraft: Brood War, Liquid appeared as a community hub for all players to join. Created by Victor “Nazgul” Goossens at the end of 2001, the project immediately blew up in popularity as it brought StarCraft popularity outside of Korea’s soil. And for good reason – Nazgul was one of the veeery few professional StarCraft outside of Korean heritage at the time. As such, Team Liquid hub was celebrated as the growing grounds for talents in the form of players, casters, and amateurs alike.

Recognized for their contribution to the game’s community by the developers, Blizzard Entertainment, Team Liquid would go on to obtain the first iteration of their famed logo. As the developers hosted a community-based tournament series called Sandlot in 2006, Team Liquid was among the invited eight most prominent community pages. Although they had the roster to represent them, there was one small problem – Liquid still had no logo. That’s where the fans stepped in, delivering a tongue-in-cheek first iteration of the valiant horse we all know today:

This little horse with the most international scarf imaginable atop of StarCraft units would be the banner for the team, flying high as they… get unfortunately eliminated from the event’s group stage. Still, no worries: the event was never meant to be a serious tournament with grand prizes on the line, but a kind gesture from the passionate devs thankful for their community.

As the project grew, the number of community events grew as well. United in their love for the biggest competitive title at the time, more and more talent joined Team Liquid, with its tournaments’ prize pools reaching the levels of their Korean counterparts. Meanwhile, Team Liquid would go on to establish the Liquipedia in 2007 – the largest esports wiki hub still in use today. Centered around StarCraft: Brood War at first, the info hub grew to be an impressive library of all things esports, connecting around 20 different titles today in an easy-to-access format. If you’re not using it right now, can you even call yourself an esports fan?

But, eventually, Nazgul came to realize that community events and forums weren’t going to cut it. That’s not to say he didn’t feel they were good enough – as he and his team of volunteers absolutely lived in the game – but every river grows downstream. And for Liquid, stagnation is death. So they chose life.

Going pro

As the organization was still mainly focusing on StarCraft at the time, the release of a successor in the form of Wings of Liberty was an amazing opportunity to expand. And “expand” might be an understatement – Team Liquid absolutely exploded its horizons by acquiring a professional Korean roster in StarCraft 2. Once again Liquid were making history as they were the first foreign organization to enter Korea’s professional esports scene.

Not only did Team Liquid simply enter the scene – they dominated it. Completely outclassing their competition in 2012’s Dreamhack Open Winter, Team Liquid’s HerO (Protoss) and TaeJa (Terran) took both ultimate prizes. Both the players finished the group stage in a flawless run and breezed through the playoffs for a Team Liquid-only Grand Final.

Seeing the validity in his desire to expand, Goossens started pushing even harder to shape Team Liquid in a multi-discipline beast we know today. In 2012, Team Liquid entered another professional scene – this time in Dota 2. The freshly acquired roster would enter Dota’s centerpiece event, The International 3, and eliminate one of the favorites for the event, LGD Gaming, in the second round of the lower bracket.

Continuing to expand their horizons, Liquid enter yet another discipline in 2015 by acquiring a formerly Team Curse’s League of Legends roster. Their arrival to the North American League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) was an immediate success as the team would place first in NA LCS Summer Season 2015, breaking their former team’s curse of always going 4th. A special shoutout to TL’s FeniX – his amazing performance on Azir during that season was one of the reasons I started maining that golden bird.

The pioneers of NA Counter-Strike

And, finally, this is the part where Team Liquid sign their Counter-Strike: Global Offensive roster. In 2015, Team Liquid’s original roster looked like this: adreN, daps, FugLy, NAF, and nitr0. Growing together with CS:GO’s still fresh pro scene, Liquid’s main achievement in their first year of CS:GO was the victory in ESL ESEA Pro League Season 2 – North America, where they would go 18-4 against their North American peers.

After a year of experimenting and mostly competing in tier-2 domestic series, Team Liquid accidentally stumble upon a goldmine. Signing the 2021’s star Ukrainian player s1mple, the updated roster makes history yet again by becoming the first North American to reach a Major final in ESL One: Cologne 2016, before getting taken down by the year’s powerhouse, SK Gaming. It seems that this team is destined to be pioneers in everything.

With this incredible breakthrough after their rocky first year, Team Liquid single-handedly elevated North American CS:GO scene to tier-1, disproving the preconceived notion of NA’s inferiority with their surprising performance in the Major. The legendary squad consisting of our old friends ELIGE, nitr0, jdm64, Hiko, and s1mple playing his last series with the team, proceeded to defeat Natus Vincere and, ultimately, pulled off an incredible upset against possibly the greatest team of that time, Fnatic.

The pioneers of NA CS, Team Liquid managed to pull off something never seen before. And, frankly, it would take a lot of time for us to see something like that again as TL would enter a period of reformation and experimenting. One of the ways for Team Liquid to better themselves was to sign Lucas “steel” Lopes as the team’s in-game leader in 2018. Although a welcome addition to the roster, the improvement was not successful enough to be called a definite success as Team Liquid wouldn’t go further than third place in S-tier events of that year, notably Intel Extreme Masters XII – World Championship and StarLadder & i-League StarSeries Season 4.

Seeking ways to improve and never shying away from scouting talents – and if there’s anything you can say about Team Liquid, finding talents seems to be their greatest strength – Team Liquid acquired more additions to their player roster in 2018. Now the North American team united these players under their banner: ELIGE, nitr0, NAF, Twistzz, and TACO. Finally, the pieces click together, as the org would begin to consistently reach finals in most S-tier series throughout the year. Clashing head-to-head with 2018’s dynasty, Astralis, Team Liquid seemingly could not overcome this fearsome opponent. But where others saw desperate defeat, Team Liquid saw ways to improve. And so they did.

The year of North America

In late 2018, when all the games were done and dusted, Team Liquid performed yet another roster change by acquiring previously MIBR’s Jacky “Stewie2K” Yip in place of Epitácio “TACO” de Melo. And, almost immediately after, they shocked the world by ending Astralis’ 406-day-long reign by convincingly defeating them in the first event of 2019, iBUYPOWER Masters IV. This alone would be an amazing achievement, but obviously, as we all know, Team Liquid are not the ones to settle.

We’re very confident and have a lot of things we know we need to fix, things that were happening in the games that we need to address, and as soon as we fix those flaws we’re going to be even stronger. – EliGE in his post ESL Pro League Season 9 Finals interview to HLTV.

Burning their names on the murals of history, Team Liquid once again broke all records by becoming the first and only North American team to claim the Intel Grand Slam prize. Intel Grand Slam is an additional challenge for all the top teams, where the winter is decided by their ability to consecutively claim the ultimate trophy in four ESL or DreamHack-organized S-tier series a single year. The winners gain international fame, and, just as a little bonus, one million dollars in gold bars directly to the players.

Just to think – a region that was considered an afterthought of the professional scene just a few years ago now dominated the likes of Astralis, Team Vitality, G2 Esports, ENCE, and Fnatic over an entire year. Team Liquid’s run Intel Extreme Masters Season XIV – Sydney was a particularly dominant one, as they reached the Grand Final without dropping a single map. Although Fnatic did manage to draw the game out to game five, there’s no reason to not believe that Team Liquid just simply wanted to play more.

Even when they weren’t winning, Team Liquid were putting up an amazing show for the fans and consistently reaching finals. Their run in Esports Championship Series Season 8 – Finals, while not resulting in the gold for the team, nevertheless delivered a nailbiter of a Bo3 final against their old nemesis, Astralis.

The downpour

Leaving the most successful year for the team and NA CS scene as a whole, Team Liquid seemingly had no reason to worry. Indeed, the team would enter 2020 by going back and forth from getting eliminated by FaZe Clan in the Group Final of BLAST Premiere: Spring 2020, but immediately springing back by claiming gold in ESL Pro League Season 11: North America. However, one thing soon became apparent – the sudden and unfortunate switch to online-only events of 2020 left some teams scrambling to adjust, and Liquid were among them.

To make matters worse, the backbone of the legendary squad, nitr0, retired from professional Counter-Strike that year, choosing to pursue a career in Riot’s freshly developed competitor FPS title, Valorant. Since nitr0 was the squad’s IGL for five years – ever since the team was founded – this change stung ever so hard as the team scrambled to replace him – chemistry this old is not easily substituted.

Still, even with all these factors combined, Liquid continued to fight. Confined to NA’s regional series due to global travel restrictions, the squad would make finals in multiple events of the year. Still, things weren’t looking that bad – until the (finally!) international online event DreamHack Masters Winter 2020: Europe. Team Liquid’s immediate termination in the first round of Group Stage was like a bucket of cold water over their head. The team has lost the spark.

Attempting to find a solution and reinvigorate their roster, Team Liquid sign the legendary Brazilian AWPer Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo in January 2021. Ironically, he was there back in ESL One: Cologne 2016 to deny Team Liquid the championship title on their debut Major. While esports is full of friends turning rivals, and rivals turning friends, it seems that FalleN’s acquisition failed to tip the scales in Liquid’s favor.

When it rains, it pours – and Liquid are no exception. 2021 as a whole has been a disaster for the American lineup. The lone NA-based team in S-tier events, the team has consistently ranked 8th or 12th , often failing to escape Group Stages of their events. Such poor results are disappointing for the fans, but for the players they are simply devastating, and Team Liquid players are open about their feelings on the matter.

When the news about an imminent massive roster change for Liquid became apparent, this was the final straw for the team’s morale. Entering the final events of the year, most notably PGL Major Stockholm, the squad failed to find common ground: and, after all, why would they? Even though the so-dubbed “walking dead” team found some strength during BLAST Premier: Fall Finals and mounted some fights by showing they’ve still got what it takes to win matches, their struggle did not bring any positive results.

And this is where we stand. Now, only the future knows what’s ahead of the legendary org in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, but… We all know that no matter what is to happen, Team Liquid’s contributions to their region in this title will never be forgotten. And outside their region as well. And outside this title, too! And outside of the professional scene, as well, because once you start off as a fan community, you never cease to be one. I’m getting too dramatic here: we know Liquid’s incredible knack for scouting talent. They’ve demonstrated it time and time again – and surely, finding team chemistry is easier than creating a whole professional scene by yourself!