"Let's go Liquid!"

I don't know since when, no matter where the game is played, every time Team Liquid plays or when they win, the entire venue will be like this They were drowned out by the shouts, as if that was their home court...

In fact, it is almost the same. Team Liquid has the most fans almost all over the world, even in China, which has a strong sense of national honor. Many people are impressed by them. This is partly due to their strong game strength: they are the first Ti champion to win a clean sheet in the finals. They even overcame the championship curse and have been almost the same since winning Ti7 until now. Maintained the level of the phantom god. On the other hand, this team has almost no black spots. In the large-scale investigation of professional players triggered by Ceb's inappropriate remarks some time ago, several members of Liquid were relatively "clean". Although Mind_Control also made inappropriate remarks about genocide, he sincerely apologized and accepted the punishment afterwards. Overall, as they have shown, they are just a team that purely loves this game. Because of their love, they can develop all kinds of strange but effective tactics. It is also because of their love that they His talent is so strong, and he has been able to maintain such a high level after winning the TI7 bonus.

The Liquid lineup we are most familiar with was born after the end of Ti6. Although Liquid was a frequent visitor to Ti many times before this, it had almost never reached the peak of its strength. During Ti3 and Ti4, Liquid was led by Bulba. Kuaibo brother qojqva and DeMoN have all been in the old Liquid. After failing to achieve good results, Liquid disbanded their DOTA2 team. After the end of TI5, Kuroky parted ways due to disagreements with Puppey. After leaving the secret team, he formed his own team 5Jungz. A month later, Liquid sponsored this team, which was also the prototype of TI7 champion Liquid.

The lineup at that time was MATUMBAMAN, FATA-, Mind_Control, JerAx and the soul of the team Kuroky.

Although this is not yet a complete entity, their strength has already begun to show. From the establishment of the team to the eve of TI6, they won 8 championships of various sizes, including those who later became Their Wage Cup competition, the Epicenter Cup. That year was the first time that Valve implemented the Major system. In the three Majors, Liquid won one fourth place and two runner-up places. However, at TI6, Liquid's performance in the group stage generally fell into the loser's group. After successive defeats against NaVi After two former Ti championships with Newbee, Liquid lost to Fnatic, ending their Ti6 journey.

During the transfer period after the end of Ti6, the most dazzling new star, Miracle, the world's first 9,000-point player, chose to join the Liquid team, and Bulba also returned. Three months later, Bulba left after not getting along well.

The ladder king GH discovered by Kuroky was added to Liquid, and Liquid finally found its last piece of the puzzle. At that time, GH's Maverick Light Magic, Elf Little Naga and other unique skills were ranked first in the world. The flexible interchangeability of Miracle Brother and Toilet Brother often left opponents confused. Everyone is familiar with what happened next. Except for the two events where they performed poorly at the Kiev Major and DAC Asia Invitational, they almost won the championship in all the competitions they participated in throughout the year, including the second Epicenter. Cup, of course, and the most substantial Ti7.

After they lost to iG in the upper bracket and fell into the lower bracket, they defeated the Chinese team's encirclement and suppression with one through five and took away the championship shield from Newbee. That year, They are the undoubted kings.

Liquid did not change their lineup after Ti7, and they still maintained their strong dominance in the following year. In the first half of the season, they were far ahead in the standings together with VP and Secret, and were called As the "Three Fantasy Gods", although their form declined slightly in the mid-term, at the end of the season, at the Supermajor, the final event with the most points, they defeated VP, who topped the standings, 3:2, and used the biggest trophy to declare that they had won the championship again. shield ambition. It's a pity that Ti8 is destined to be remembered by only two teams this year. PSG.LGD, who became the "Illusion God Killer" after awakening, and OG, which has been dormant for a long time but became a blockbuster. Ti8 Liquid won fourth place. This result is not counted. Bad, but for a liquid that has reached its peak, failing to win again is a failure. After Ti8, they still maintained their original lineup and launched a new round of impact towards their second championship shield. Let us review their performance this year in detail.

Season review

Champion's poison, phantom god's pride

In the first official event of the new season, the Kuala Lumpur Major qualifier, Liquid lost to Secret They also suffered an upset loss to Team Lithium, finishing fifth in the qualifiers and missing out on the first Major of the season. This is by no means the level of the Liquid team. Some people are worried that the Ti championship poison will finally break out a year later. Will this be the starting point for Liquid's collapse?

In the following Minor qualifiers, Liquid Vengeance Team Lithium finally got the opportunity to participate in the Dream League Minor, but I don’t know because of their arrogance as a fantasy god, which made them look down on the pitiful nature of the Minor. points, or because "Newbee-chan won't fight, I won't fight either." In short, they lost this Minor after qualifying, claiming that they wanted to give the players a holiday and adjust well.

With the blessing of Divine Wings, ups and downs

The season entered the second stage. In the qualifiers of the Chongqing Major, Liquid did not make any mistakes and defeated Team A 2-1 to advance to Shancheng. Main event. In the ensuing Winter Brawl, they defeated NaVi 3:0 and won their first championship of the year. It is worth mentioning that although there are only 6 teams participating in this Winter Brawl, VP, Secret, LGD and other teams are among them, and the gold content can be said to be comparable to a small Major. Although NaVi unexpectedly defeated LGD to reach the finals, Liquid still used more experience to easily win over NaVi.

After the Chinese New Year, the Chongqing Major kicked off, but before the start of the game Liquid regretfully announced that Miracle would not be able to participate in the event due to personal reasons, and they had to find a substitute. They asked Burning about his wishes but were rejected (Leizi himself narrated the live broadcast, and the authenticity is open to question.), and after several twists and turns, the one who finally appeared in the Liquid lineup turned out to be Shadow, who had just started live broadcasting. This also made many Chinese knife fans feel more familiar with Liquid. Many comments during the live broadcast gave Liquid the same treatment as the Chinese team. In the series, Shadow also played some exciting games such as PA rushing to the high ground and Medusa making a comeback with Yggdrasil behind him, which received a lot of praise on reddit. And this also proves the strong tolerance of the Liquid team. Even with a core player who has never gotten along or even has communication barriers, they can still play their own style and win the game.

Picture source Weibo @TeamLiquid

In this game, due to the absence of the "team tyrant" Miracle Brother, Toilet Brother can finally spend money and buy equipment with pride, which is so happy.

But in the end, due to the absence of Miracle, the system they were best at could not be implemented. They lost to Fnatic in the knockout round and finished 7th to 8th place. For them, who were left in the field, it was not satisfactory.

At least compared to the beginning of the season, Liquid is slowly regaining its form. Just when everyone thought they were going to be on the right track, Liquid fell into an incomprehensible state of instability. In the Macau MDL, they defeated EG and won another championship, but in the Dream League S11 Major that followed, they lost to w33's South American team Chaos in the first round of the loser group, and this game was only It lasted 22 minutes, which can be said to be a crushing match. This time Liquid played with a complete lineup and had no excuses. It can be said that this was the new Liquid's worst performance since its establishment. Perhaps it was this failure that caused cracks inside Liquid and became the basis for future lineup changes. the trigger.

The Disneyland Paris Major is already halfway through the season, and Liquid’s points are not enough to invite them directly. The only two times they have won the championship were in unofficial events without points. This team of former kings Are we going to be reduced to preliminaries? Liquid took on a new look in this Major and powerfully shattered such doubts. They adjusted their mentality after losing to EG in the upper bracket, and the lower bracket reached the finals one after another. EG's performance in revenge in the loser's bracket final was even more exciting. They used their most familiar Chen system to break through EG's high ground in just 10 minutes. On the stage of the finals, although they won the first game, they suffered a strong counterattack by Secret, and the final score was fixed at 1:3. Compared with their first-round performance in the last Major, this second place finish is not a big improvement, and it has directly confirmed their place in this year's Ti. But for a team like Liquid that is used to being at the top, this kind of close defeat may be even more difficult for them to accept, but what is even more unexpected is that Liquid's adjustment came so decisively and Swift, even... ruthless.

33 toilets, which one is better and which one is worse?

Fate is probably so funny. Just a few days after Liquid won the honor of "the most stable team" with a lineup that remained unchanged for 756 days, Liquid's official tweet and official blog released A bombshell------MATUMBAMAN left the team.

The community exploded, and even domestic Weibo became a hot search topic. Brother Toilet's strength may not look like a first-line C, but as we all know, the liquid tactical system made him give up most of his resources to the absolute core Miracle Brother. And he always does some dirty work. In the minds of many people, Kuroky is Liquid's brain and soul, Miracle Brother is Liquid's sharpest sword, and Toilet Brother is Liquid's strongest backing.

But this did not change Liquid's obsession with changing formations. At the beginning of the last Major, they announced the successor of Toilet Brother, w33------maybe the one who lost to Chaos They were overly impressed by the game. Brother Toilet eventually went to Chaos to fill the vacancy of w33. The two teams completed the exchange of core positions. However, according to interviews with many foreign players, Toilet was "leaved" from the team rather than breaking up peacefully. Liquid's move attracted a lot of criticism and pushed w33 into an extremely embarrassing position. He must prove that Liquid's decision was correct through this last Major. Before the Major, everyone was not optimistic about them. As a former genius boy, w33 has been in the second-tier team since leaving DC, and his hero pool is very good except for the unique skill of three axes and the popularity of Meepo TA. It's hard to see any outstanding performance.

But what is surprising is that Liquid shattered all doubts with their strong performance. In the group stage, they easily defeated EG and Infamous to enter the winner group. In the winner group, they defeated LGD and LGD one after another. VP. w33 proved himself with his performance. In the current version of the unpopular mid laner, Windrunner, w33 used it to tell everyone what a real "unique skill" is. After the group stage, people laughed and said that Liquid was replaced by a Windrunner. MATU. Various wonderful double bundles of cloud-penetrating arrows can determine the outcome, and his signature heroes Meepo and TA are also great weapons. The most important thing is that he can always choose his unique skill, because it is impossible for any team to give all their energy and ban position to w33 when playing against Liquid. Everyone knows who the real core of the Liquid team is.

They performed well in the EPICENTER Cup, although they still fell behind against the invincible VG. In the five games of the finals, after rOtk found a way to deal with Feng Xing and firmly banned TA, Liquid's weakness in the mid-term was exposed. Once they were unable to crush them in the early stage, they could only rely on Miracle's big nuclear drag. back. But VG didn't give them such a chance. Except for a rogue-like defense of Diango that allowed them to come back even though they were 40,000 behind in economy, VG didn't give Liquid a chance in the remaining three games. Ended the battle. The results of this EPICENTER Cup demonstrated the potential of Liquid's new formation, and also exposed their existing problems. Once they find a way to solve their problems, they are one of the most formidable opponents at Ti9.

Picture source Weibo @TeamLiquid

Player introduction

Kuroky:

You cannot mention Liquid without first mentioning Kuroky, he is The creators of this team are their brains. According to the Liquid players themselves, what they did was to implement Kuroky's understanding and tactical concepts of this game as much as possible.

If I can only use one word, I think legend is the label that best suits him. He has many identities, such as the first player to complete the all-hero challenge in the professional arena, the first player to win a thousand wins in the professional arena, and the e-sports player with the highest prize money in the world. After both ddc and Universe failed to qualify for Ti9, he became one of the only two full-timers at Ti. The other was his old teammate and now rival Puppey.

As early as 2005, the 6.43 version of DOTA, 13-year-old Kuroky made his debut in WE. Although the years have carved him into a "German bald man", in that era of chaos, he was the brightest. A talented boy with bright eyes. At that time, he was a carry, a sword that could tear everything apart with his youthful vigor and extraordinary reflexes.

In 2006, Kuroky, who was not yet 14 years old, won the championship in the DL League and became a blockbuster. At that time, longdd was still hanging out in Internet cafes playing RPG, YYF was still in the gas station, 820 and Snoy group He has not yet embarked on a professional path, but kky has already taken his WE around and made a name for himself.

From 2007 to 2008, Kuroky joined the German tank Mouz team. At that time, Chinese Dota had just started, and Mouz had already become the three fantasy gods of ancient times together with MYM and Loda's SK. In 2008, gosugamer voted him the best carry of 2008, and he was only 16 years old that year.

After that, Kuroky was successfully promoted by Puppey and came to Ks.int. His teammates were not only Puppey, but also the equally young and frivolous Dendi, and Vigoss, the number one player in DOTA at the time.

This is a terrifying galactic battleship, and it is also an opportunity for Kuroky to get acquainted with Puppey and Dendi and join Navi in ??the future. The Ks team interpreted gank to the extreme and invented many play styles that have been passed down to this day, such as the axe-killer, 311 split lane, double roaming, etc.

Since the beginning of the DOTA2 era, Kuroky has played in many teams, including VP and Mouz. At the beginning of 2013, he was invited by his friends to join NaVi and changed his job to support for the first time, which made him a success in that team. The last glorious period of the dynasty. The first time this generation of Chinese players got to know Kuroky was from NaVi. They created monster lanes such as spring water hooks, and their unconstrained ideas always yielded miraculous results. The double soy sauce combination of kky and ppy became a unique combination of that era. The existence of first gear.

After 14 years, NaVi fell from the altar and failed to recover. After Ti4, ppy and kky left the team, gathered the most outstanding players in each position, and formed an all-star team--Team secert.

This team won all the championships in the year and became the favorite to win the TI championship. However, conflicts broke out within the team before the TI game. RTZ publicly accused Kuroky of playing selfishly and disregarding the team. Their morale was low and they ended up in 7th or 8th place.

Perhaps out of shame, perhaps disappointment, or perhaps boredom, Kuroky did not argue, but quietly quit Secret, and the once talented group fell apart. Kuroky decided to form a team according to his own ideas, so the 5Jungz we mentioned earlier appeared, which is the predecessor of the current liquid.

The following story has been written before, so I won’t repeat it again. The boy eventually became a veteran. kky lost his unparalleled reactions and operations when he was young, but gained an unrivaled experience. The veterans of his generation have long since left the scene, but he still retains the heart of a champion, still beating more fiercely than anyone else. During the TI7 finals with an easy 2:0 NB, the other members of Liquid felt that the championship was already within reach. When they were joking, Kuroky was more nervous and serious than usual, and the players also stopped joking under his influence. With all their thoughts, they earnestly gave their captain a hearty victory.

A talented boy who became famous at a young age, traveled many battlefields, and finally won the championship... Kuroky is what every e-sports player most hopes to live up to, and the reason why he can do all this is not only because of his His talent, but also because of his love and obsession, his decades of exploration and pursuit of this game, such an opponent deserves our love and respect.

Then in the Liquid game, faced with performances with different advantages and disadvantages, we will often see barrages making such comments about kky:

When playing well : Genius boy kky! The soul of the team

When you win the knight: King of ideas, free to the captain, German bald, lie down on the ground after BP

Miracle-

Off the field Brother Miracle is a somewhat introverted and silent person, and can even be said to be a bit "imbecile" (his teammates revealed during the OG period that he couldn't even change his steam avatar). In 2015, he emerged as the king of passers-by and joined Fly. Monkey Business with Notail, later the Spring and Autumn Overlord, OG team. His Karl scares all his opponents, and his Karl highlights are widely circulated on YouTube. He is also the first player in the world to reach 9,000 points on the ladder, and is called "Nine Thousand Years Old" by the audience. He is a true martial arts fanatic. It can be said that whether it was OG at that time or Liquid now, their main tactics are inseparable from Miracle's unparalleled personal ability. During that period, Miracle was the well-deserved number one in DOTA. A typical example of doing as much as you can with the resources you eat. While he has gained a large number of fans with his chic appearance and superb skills, he has also attracted the jealousy of many black people. When they inevitably make some small mistakes, they always jump out and shout loudly: "High scores and low energy, miracle turtles." Miracle-Gagged them hard with a piece of the Champions Shield. Miracle-'s form has been ups and downs since Ti7, but he never let his teammates down when they needed him to step up the most.

When playing well: Miracle is so awesome and powerful!

The fight was not good: Director Qi and Brother Miracle also joined the party

Mind_Control

The honest MC formed Liquid together with Kuroky and fought hard until now, His unique abilities, Prophet and Beastmaster, are Liquid's favorite choices to advance the lineup.

When NiP failed to participate in the first Major of the season, because NiP's third position 33 could not participate due to Jewish historical reasons, MC went to NiP as a substitute and got fourth place. MC was often in the third position in the game." One drags four", and NiP failed to even enter the second Major after losing MC, so MC is called "the strongest professional power leveler"

When playing well: professional power leveling MC GOD

When playing poorly: Little Fatty

GH

As the last piece of the puzzle for Liquid, GH used his unique skills to help Liquid win the championship Aegis, and he is also a simple and lovely person on weekdays. At the Asian Invitational Tournament, Brother Jun affectionately called GH "Brother Going Home", and GH also accepted this nickname with an embarrassed smile.

Playing well: Unique Skill Hai Lebanese Passerby King

Playing poorly: Brother Going Home

Picture source Weibo @Newbee E-Sports Club

w33

Although the correct way to pronounce it is "weehaa", domestic players are obviously more keen on calling him Dabuli Suan. After debuting in 2014, he became well known for his unique Mipo and unique skills. After the end of TI5, he was called into Secret and helped them win the Winter Season Shanghai Major. But after winning the championship, Puppey turned his back and kicked out w33 and Misery. The two unwilling people joined Resolution's new team Digital Chaos, who had just left the Empire, and formed the Avengers. In TI6, they fought their way out of the chaos, defeated LGD, EHOME, EG and other strong teams in a row, and then came to Wings, who defeated them in the loser group. Unfortunately, that summer was destined to belong to Wings, and their destiny was empty. Exploding sky fire, welcome back and goodbye. The Avengers have become the background of the Guardian Wings, but for w33, this is not so cruel. After all, he lost the game but gained love. During TI, it was revealed that he had developed a relationship with the Chinese commentator Chen Ya. Love, and they acquiesced to this fact. His behavior during the finals was also jokingly called "joining the party" by Chinese players. Although he has been in the second-tier team for a long time, w33 still maintains the first-tier standard. After replacing the toilet, can he integrate into this team of kings and get his own championship shield to make up for the regrets of that summer? Let's wait and see.

When the fight is good: Feng Xing KING Mibo KING

When the fight is not good: Yaya, I miss you, join the party, join the party, kick matu for this? (Just for this This is kicking the toilet?)

The reason why many people like liquids is partly because of their superior skills and partly because of their endless ideas. Five people push the middle tower at the first level, electric dogs kill Roshan in an instant, etc. Although these incredible operations may not necessarily achieve results, they at least reflect Liquid's continuous attempts, innovation, and pursuit of this game. The reason why the championship curse always remains It can work, precisely because the sense of accomplishment brought by high bonuses will indeed dissipate your enthusiasm for the game, and for Liquid, what they are doing is to prove that as long as this game is alive, they will continue to be strong. Going forward, the championship is not the end, what they pursue is one breakthrough after another.

Who wouldn't like such a respectable and lovable opponent?

Picture source Weibo @TeamLiquid