The start of a new era?
Finally it's time for this year's first major in Counter Strike:GO. The tournament begins next Wednesday with the Challengers stage. However, eight teams have already automatically qualified for the major as they made it to the quarter-final of the previous Major and therefore achieved 'legend status'.
In 2018, there was just one team that dominated, Astralis. They were dominant all year, and won almost everything they competed in. Astralis are a complete team. Good in-game leader, key players and a harmony throughout the team. During 2018, their main competition worsened. s1mples Na'Vi put in a brave performance but were eventually let down by Zeus' and Edward's no shows. FaZe did not get their tactics right and suffered from heavy casualties and player changes. MIBR tried their international starting five, which was a bad idea and resulted in the gap between then and Astralis widening. There is a team though that has grown in strength over time and are now closer to challenging Astralis than any other team. I am talking about Team Liquid.
In 2018, Team Liquid became established as a team of the highest standard, and Astralis' only real challenger. They may have missed out on the big titles but they did achieve a sense of continuity. Astralis and Team Liquid are pretty much equal in terms of quality but so far Team Liquid have not been able to win the psychological battle. But their time may have come.
At the start of 2019, Team Liquid finally broke that mental barrier and beat Astralis in a final. It was a key moment because without the psychological edge the two teams are pretty evenly matched.
There are a number of teams that could, in theory, win the the major, but in current form it's only really Astralis or Team Liquid who stand a chance.
Team Liquid, like Astralis, are a complete team. TACO who has been Team Liquid's 'weak link' has now returned to MIBR and Team Liquid have recruited Stewie2k. A player which will make Team Liquid an even more formidable adversary. NAF-FLY and twistzz are amongst the best players in the world, nitr0 has developed into an dependent in-game leader and AWP player and EliGE always does his job. It is now time to really step up and challenge Astralis for real.
Taking all of this in to account you can see that the market really under values Team Liquid. The market has Astralis to win at 11/10 but Team Liquid at 5/1. Now Team Liquid have finally beaten their bogey team and strengthened their team I believe they have a real chance to win this.
