IEM Chicago Event Recap | Team Liquid Goes Six From Six
Now that IEM XIV Chicago 2019 is all done, the entire CS:GO esports community is turning its attention to the upcoming StarLadder Berlin Major. There’s exactly a month to go until, the Challengers Stage kickoff meaning all teams still have plenty of time to prepare. If you want a closer look at the teams that managed to qualify via Minors, make sure you check out our Minors Recap news. However, for now we’re gonna focus on our IEM Chicago recap.
IEM Chicago Recap
First of all, the outcome of IEM Chicago was pretty much a matter of formality. Team Liquid players made sure of that. They were at their best during each second of the event, conquering every team and stomping them without too much effort. EliGE was crowned as the event MVP, and rightly so if I may add. The 22-year old American prodigy has already accumulated three MVP titles in the last two months alone. IEM Chicago, ESL Pro League S9 Finals, and DreamHack Masters Dallas, to be more precise.
But enough about Liquid. Let’s focus on the task at hand, and that would be the IEM Chicago Recap!
Group Stage
The group stage featured two surprising outcomes. First, the opening match of group B where Heroic dominated against Vitality and pushed them to the elimination match. Even though Vitality’s Overpass has been pretty good recently (80% win rate in the last three months), Friberg was just too hot to handle. Luckily, ZywOo came back from a poor performance against Renegades and secured 69 kills across three maps to take revenge on Heroic and go through to the playoffs. Unfortunately, the opening match loss meant their semi-finals opponent was Team Liquid.
The second group stage surprise wasn’t such a big one in my books. I’m referring to the decider match of group A between G2 and MiBR. Many people were extremely surprised to see MiBR take this one simply because zews was playing instead of the departed coldzera.
While I can understand where such opinions are coming from, I can’t understand why people underestimate zews’ abilities. After all, the man’s been the team’s coach since December and has clearly figured out the way the team works. True, they haven’t been playing that well since then, but his effort and know-how shouldn’t be taken for granted. When it comes to MiBR’s win against G2, it’s basically the result of very poor performance by the French side, more than anything else.
Playoffs
The semifinals saw Vitality go up against Liquid and ENCE against MiBR. Against the tenacious Finns, MiBR showed great spirits and managed to secure Mirage with a comfortable 16-9 on the scoreboard. However, Aleksib and allu showed up for the occasion on both Train and Dust II. Both players were over 1.50 HLTV rating which just goes to show their dominance on the battlefield.
As for Liquid vs Vitality, I got to say this match left me a bit disappointed. Especially the second (and final) map played on Overpass. With both teams playing great OVP matches throughout the last few months, I expected a neck and neck contest from start to finish. However, Vitality was obviously phased by the 0-1 on the scoreboard after Dust II and they failed to take a stance on the second map. EliGe and the rest of the boys in blue closed out the match with style and were cruising to yet another LAN grand finals this season.
At last, the final playoffs paragraph of our IEM Chicago Recap will be focusing on the grandest fixture. Unfortunately, the grand finals match between Team Liquid and ENCE was anything but thrilling. ENCE managed to take just five rounds on the first two maps, Overpass and Nuke. Since this was a Bo5 contest, their agony had to go through the third map. Even though TL was leading 12-5 at one point, ENCE came just two rounds from winning it. In the end, their agony ended in the worst possible way, losing the first two rounds with just five rounds to their name and then losing the third map with 16-14 on the scoreboard.
Team Liquid Continues to Dominate
Team Liquid confirmed their status as the most dominant team in the competitive CS:GO sphere. By conquering IEM Chicago (and with some style, if I may add), EliGE, Twistzz and the company managed to win seven titles in the last two months alone. Yep, you read that correctly – seven titles in two months, upping their total 2019 title count to nine.
That said, there’s no doubt the era of Team Liquid lives on! Their entire roster is showing great individual performances and, at least for the moment, there doesn’t seem to be anyone even remotely close to stopping them. Astralis and Team Vitality seem like the strongest contestants right now. However, with StarLadder Major one month away, let’s not forget how Team Liquid’s Katowice saga ended. A quick reminder, they got beaten by ENCE in the quarterfinals. In other words, Team Vitality and Astralis might not be the only proper contestants in Berlin. Cometh the Major, I’m sure there will be one or two teams looking for a piece of the champion.
MiBR Looking Good
There’s one more team I’d like to highlight in this IEM Chicago Recap and it’s MiBR. Not because I think their IEM Chicago performance was that surprising but because I think they did a great job of proving everyone wrong. In the end, it seems as though zews could be the perfect fit for this MiBR roster on the upcoming StarLadder Berlin Major. Many members of the Brazilian CS:GO community criticized MiBR for opting for zews instead of Coldzera. And while Coldzera definitely is the better player of the two, the team wouldn’t be operating at the highest possible level if the problematic 24-year old remained in the starting lineup.
That said, there is still plenty of time for zews to brush up his CS:GO skill. Even though his initial matches for MiBR were pretty solid, there’s still a ton of room for improvement. Perhaps we won’t see the arrival of HEN1, LUCAS1’s brother, after all…
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