![]() ![]() It was only one tournament, and Astralis had dropped a tournament here and there before. At iBuypower Masters IV, we finally beat Astralis 2-1 in a best of 3 finals.ĭespite the 2-1 win over Astralis, it wasn’t clear just how good we were yet. The new player and coach brought in the confidence and decisiveness that Team Liquid needed. In 2019, we found it in Stewie2K and adreN. We were close, we just needed another bump. We won convincingly on Train 16-8, and had a lead and a tie on Mirage and Inferno respectively before losing 16-11 on each. At the ESL Pro League Season 8 Final, we got closer than we may have ever been to dethroning the Danes. Those hard losses where we would only win 3 or 4 rounds became less frequent. Could they accomplish the same things now, when the competition is stronger?īy the end of 2018, we were starting to become that rival. Wilt Chamberlain, the original king of basketball, and Ken, the original king of Smash, have asterisks by all their accomplishments. In the short term, it might feel great to stomp weak competition, but in the long term it doesn’t just hurt your audience, it hurts your legacy. But every competitor needs a rival to have a complete story. They needed us.Īstralis was by no means a boring team. This pattern rinsed and repeated for a while, to the point where Astralis’ victory seemed inevitable, their era was so dominant that it bordered on boring.Īstralis wasn’t a boring team. Then, we’d go to their strong picks like Nuke, Overpass, or Cache and take a hard loss. We would pick on their weak maps, like Inferno and Mirage, to get a fairly close win. When we faced with Astralis in the early part of the year, the wins and losses often came down to the map pool. Just like it became clear Astralis was number 1, it became clear we were number 2. But for as unstoppable as they looked, we were always just behind them, and in that same time span we only dropped below 4th twice, or in 2 of 16 total tournaments. ![]() From May onward, they never dropped below 4th. They’d risen higher than literally any other team. Then in May, Astralis had obviously risen higher than us - but that was hardly a mark of shame. Team Liquid went on to win cs_summt 2 over Cloud 9 and by the end of March, Astralis started going on their legendary run. Magisk and NAF both immediately elevated their new teams. In early February 2018, Astralis picked up Magisk and Team Liquid brought back NAF. Then, in a remarkable parallel, both teams would make extremely meaningful roster changes on almost the same day. At that time, both Astralis and Liquid were successful enough to be relevant - but not enough to be dominant. 2017 was filled with 3rd and 4th places for the Danes. Before Team Liquid had a finals curse, Astralis had their own Semifinals Curse. Though Astralis and Team Liquid have their differences in style and region, they’ve got surprising similarities in narratives. ![]() The kind that comes from two top competitors walking the same path. If you’re a Liquid fan, you’re no stranger to that. Like two magnetic poles, their seperate charges constantly cause them to intertwine. More often than not, two rivals find each other because of how different they are. Our journey to turn a one-sided beatdown into one of the best rivalries CS:GO has ever seen. Our journey to push them to prep for us like we did for them. Our journey to turn their era into our moment. Astralis for what it is: our journey to defeat the Danish kings of CS:GO. This is to show the true history of Team Liquid vs. These stats aren’t here to depress our fans or drag the team. We met Astralis in five finals and got five silver medals. In 2018, Team Liquid and Astralis faced off in an almost nauseating 853 rounds. The two teams played 34 games and Astralis won 27 of them. Across 14 sets (including best-of-ones), Astralis won 13 times. In 2018, Astralis and Team Liquid met 14 times. Make no mistake, Astralis weren’t our rivals in 2018. They’re not your rivals until you beat them. ![]()
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