Team Liquid gets a painful reminder that Dota 2 is a tough game

Team Liquid finished the Dota Pro Circuit in 1^st place and had amazing results throughout the season, playing in every Major Grand Final, as well as the Grand Finals of ESL One Berlin, DreamLeague S19, and Riyadh Masters.

This is a competitor that finished 3^rd at The International 11 and then made one of the best roster changes in its history by bringing in Michal “Nisha” Jankowski from Team Secret.

Regionally, Liquid won Tour 1 and Tour 2 of DPC 2023, proving that they’re among the best of the best, because Western Europe has been the strongest Dota 2 region in the world for the past three years.

Arguably, the only failure registered by Liquid in 2023, prior to DreamLeague S21, came at DreamLeague S20, where Blitz and his crew finished 15^th – 16^th after an abysmal performance.

Now, at DreamLeague S21, with only 12 teams in the race, Liquid finished 9^th – 10^th, which was another epic failure. Out of the five matches they played, Liquid drew twice and lost three times. This would have been very hard to predict at the start of the tournament.

Our DreamLeague S21 run ends here. Disappointing results, but we are focused on improving for a strong showing to finish out the year.
Thanks to @ESLDota2 for everything, and GGs to our opponents! #LETSGOLIQUID #ESLProTour https://t.co/5apCKUCslH

— Team Liquid (@TeamLiquid) September 20, 2023

Liquid’s failures at DreamLeague S21

Day 1 of the competition clearly indicated that Liquid simply do not enjoy online events, at least not against international opponents. Their opponents were 9Pandas and Entity, and the results were as bad as they could be: 0 W – 4 L.

Against 9Pandas, Liquid picked Earth Spirit twice, along with two of the strongest carry heroes of the meta: Gyrocopter and Phantom Assassin. They also had Vengeful Spirit and Grimstroke, two of the strongest support heroes of Dota 2 patch 7.34c. But despite all of this, they got destroyed by their CIS opponent.

In the second match, Entity looked relatively easy to beat. The only problem is that one of the best offlaners of the past two years decided to stand-in for them after one of their players couldn’t attend the event.

Ammar “ATF” Al-Assaf played really well and his performance allowed Entity to win both games with some interesting heroes. Among them, Centaur and Muerta were the most unorthodox.

In their next two matches, Liquid drew twice. First against Talon Esports and then against Shopify Rebellion. These results gave them a glimmer of hope, but that hope was crushed in the final match of the group. Tundra easily defeated them thanks to another stand-in: Topson.

Header: Team Liquid