Team Liquid CS:GO

Dunno if you guys are aware but Team Liquid's Counter-Strike:Global Offensive team is in the finals of the ESL Cologne Major, first place is $500k ($1m prizepool). Even if you've never watched CS before it's quite enjoyable to watch.

they just beat one of the best teams in the world, Fnatic, 2-0. The games were close but they actually lost all 4 pistol rounds which is pretty huge (normally if u lose the pistol round you start off 0-3 because of how the economical system works in CS).

Tomorrow at 8 am PST (ugh) they play the current best team in the world SK (former LG), who are insanely good Brazilians. They won the last major.

Last time Liquid UNREAL choked in the semi finals, being up 15-6 and 15-8 in two maps and losing both in overtime vs the brazilians (i may have those scorelines wrong but it was something along those lines). Based on what they did vs Fnatic today I'd say they have gotten the choking out of their system.

Historically North American CS is far behind European CS, never doing well in international competitions. The squad is 4 NA players and 1 player from Ukraine (who at the moment probably has the best raw skill in the game). The 4 NA players are unreal good too and they are all performing very well.

you can replay the match vs fnatic here: https://www.twitch.tv/esl_csgo/v/77092617 (skip to 5 hrs 44 min or so)

Here are some highlight clips i grabbed off reddit:

1) s1mple 2x awp noscope clutch:
https://clips.twitch.tv/esl_csgo/UglyDolphinBlargNaut

s1mple's POV:
https://clips.twitch.tv/esl_csgo/HorribleKoupreyHotPokket

2) s1mple flickshot:
https://clips.twitch.tv/esl_csgo/CooperativeGoatDBstyle

3) elige 3k in a game deciding round:
https://clips.twitch.tv/esl_csgo/WanderingPelicanDeIlluminati

4) elige 1v2 clutch:
https://clips.twitch.tv/esl_csgo/AggressiveRabbitTF2John

5) s1mple 1v3 clutch vs na'vi:
https://clips.twitch.tv/esl_csgo/HandsomeCormorantEagleEye

6) elige 2k entry:
https://clips.twitch.tv/esl_csgo/HelplessSquidKAPOW

7) elige 3k entry:
https://clips.twitch.tv/esl_csgo/HorribleTurtleGingerPower



unfortunately this is the last event TL will be playing with s1mple. its a shame how things worked out, this team is amazing. if there's anything u can do about it Naz plz do Pimp is a good rifler but he's not s1mple. but props on getting TL into CS and putting together the best squad NA has to offer, so many other NA orgs have such shit teams.

what's happening to s1mple that hes not gonna be with liquid anymore?

vn naz putting all these teams together, are you very involved in the management of each of liquid's teams or more hands off on some games?

nazgul is becoming the mark cuban of gaming lol

he moved to the US in order to join TL but things went wrong, he's notoriously toxic and rages at his teammate... even being kicked from scrims because it got so bad. flipsid3 wanted him gone when he quit and no one in europe would pick him up despite his skill. the lineup at the time was Adren / s1mple / nitro / elige / hiko. he wanted adren off the team as he joined the team (who actually had an amazing performance last major but admittedly he's lower skill level than these guys, he was the in game leader tho). they then picked up koosta for adren who was inexperienced and he did terribly on LAN which probably set him off more. s1mple also wanted to be the main awper both times but the team didnt want him to and this bothered him (his rifling is amazing). the team basically said they'd quit if he wasnt off the team (he's hiko's friend).

his side of the story is that he wasnt put into a team house and was put in a house... i believe with the LoL TL team. he was isolated, didnt make friends or do anything social, and missed his family and friends too much. he went home for a visit and never came back. also he believes in always working on one's individual skill, he didnt get that vibe from the team ( or some members) and it tilted him.

the team agreed to play with him for 2 more events, one with koosta, they wound up kicking koosta and signing JDM64 (best awp NA at the moment) who is incredibly consistent. now they're performing extremely well and s1mple actually likes JDM64 because of how good he is and his work ethic and is fine with letting him be the main AWP. but TL already signed the Danish player Pimp who was willing to move to the US to join the team (very good rifler but he's no s1mple and has also shown a lot of inconsistency (he was kicked from Dignitas).

now that everyone is performing incredibly well and the team signed the brazilian coach Peacemaker (they really did need a coach, he's very very good), i'm sure he's really happy with the team. no idea how the rest of the team feels about him tho but based on what we see they seem to be getting along much better and clearly can be one of the top teams in the world with s1mple.

hiko confirmed on twitter this still would be s1mple's last event. the last major run was a fluke tbh, but this one most certainly was not. it'd be a super shame if they won and then lost their best player. i'm sure they'd still be really good with Pimp as the team has definitely come together, but losing a hard carry like s1mple is a big deal

watched it live despite having no clue what was going on

was hype

CS and Broodwar are the best spectator games. BW has become stale as of late though, not many new faces and creativity anymore. Good to know CS is bigger than ever now

nice summary frinkx

sounds like a lot of gamers could use some mental game coaching

naz have you ever thought of hiring someone like elliot roe or jared tendler to have some sessions with your teams?

LETS GO LIQUID

VAMO MATAR ELES FDPS MLKS NOOBS DE BRASIL

ugh RIP, theres the choking

Liquid loses 5/5 anti-ecos (meaning they had full buys vs pistols no armor)

Liquid loses 4 2v1 post-plant situations

Liquid loses 1 3v1 post-plant situation

Liquid loses 3/4 pistol rounds


oh well still great they got to the finals

"simple got 70% of his kills during two rounds of Train. Went 18 rounds without frags" holy choke


maybe pimp is a good thing, he wont do something like that >.<

Was discussing my finals predictions with a friend yesterday (which I hardly ever cared to do). I told him I thought that the pressure would be too much for s1mple, especially after ending the semi-finals on such a personal high. Seemed only logical that he'd have to hit a low. I also felt like TL's momentum was done with. Hiko specifically kept talking about how it was a dream come true to reach the finals, and of course it's completely understandable. But that's never been the mindset of the champions in this game. You have to really really want to win, and not care about second places. You could tell that they would be satisfied with second place no matter what after such a nice series against Fnatic, which led me to believe that they wouldn't be a match for the Brazilians this time around. It's just not a good mentality to come into a match with when you know you have already performed well above expectation.

On top of the mental game they weren't hitting their shots except Elige and the communication just wasn't good enough. SK is just too good and even just a few mistakes are going to be unforgiving. Really unexciting finals overall, too one-sided and with such terrible observing missing so much of the action every round.

choking in CS is like the worst feeling, everything feels wrong

On July 10 2016 04:29 Smuft wrote: nice summary frinkx sounds like a lot of gamers could use some mental game coaching naz have you ever thought of hiring someone like elliot roe or jared tendler to have some sessions with your teams?

their issues seems very childish and emotional, Tendlers seems to be in another level, like how to maximize productivity, goal setting etc, these guys are just emotional retards they probably need something more basic

tendler is just as good at dealing with fundamentals as he is at maximizing

I think he'd quickly logically break down any childish issues on why they are happening and show them to the player in a way that's very hard for them to ignore

I've seen him do this before on really stupid/small issues that cause huge problems and after you hear his solution it's like "wow that is so simple, why didn't I think of that before", lots of mini 'aha moments'

I think pretty much all sports (besides mental sports like poker or chess) really need a lot more mental coaching, you see professional athletes throwing games away for childish tantrums, a super obvious example when Zindane threw the worldcup away headbutting Materazzi only because he was trolling him.

So I agree that Naz shouldnt do the same mistake everyone does in sports in e-sports, he should get them mental/emotional coaching, it will make them perform much better

On July 10 2016 03:27 whamm! wrote: CS and Broodwar are the best spectator games. BW has become stale as of late though, not many new faces and creativity anymore. Good to know CS is bigger than ever now

true. but if looking to bet in esports bw > all. it's just the most fun to watch.

fwiw Elliott Roe is the nuts imo, I've been using his mp3's for 2 years now and it has helped me poker mental game tremendously (and I didn't even have that big of a problem with it to begin with, but still, stuff's amazing if that's something that works for you).

Thanks for the support everyone, unfortunate we couldn't close it out, but we gave it our best shot and played some amazing CounterStrike up until the final.

On July 10 2016 02:44 Smuft wrote: what's happening to s1mple that hes not gonna be with liquid anymore? vn naz putting all these teams together, are you very involved in the management of each of liquid's teams or more hands off on some games?

With s1mple he is still under contract, just didn't want to play from North America anymore, so we had to bring in another rifler. Where he will go depends on what teams are interested in playing with him and where he wants to go. We're going to have those conversations this week.

On July 10 2016 04:29 Smuft wrote: nice summary frinkx sounds like a lot of gamers could use some mental game coaching naz have you ever thought of hiring someone like elliot roe or jared tendler to have some sessions with your teams?

I don't know those guys and don't particularly think they could have provided much in this scenario. Generally speaking however mental coaching is very important and will be something that gets developed more and more in esports.