Team Liquid vs North – ECS Season 6 Finals

The finals of the 6th season of the Esports Championship Series (ECS) begin on Thursday. Eight teams will gather in Arlington, Texas, to fight for the prize of approximately $ 660,000. The tournament takes place from November 22nd to 25th and features the teams that performed during the last season of ECS in their respective regions. North America and Europe each have four teams that qualified at the end of the league phase. Teams are divided into two groups (A and B) and each has two teams from each region. The current stage of the competition is the group stage, which will be played in the best of one format.

The reason we have picked this match for you because it is the battle between two teams that are in the top 10 world ranking of the eSports title. They have displayed some fascinating performances throughout the year. So, it will be an interesting practice to see which side will come out victorious.

North

The Danish team, which has received sponsorship from FC Copenhagen football club, previously performed under the banner of Team Dignitas. In October 2016, the lineup won the EPICENTER 2016, but in December, the organization announced that it wanted to reorient to the North American scene. In January 2017, the Danes signed contracts with FC Copenhagen and continued to perform under the new tag North. Since their new tag, they have shown quite fascinating performances against some of the best teams.

Winter is here, and so is the North. The Danish composition has surely flourished in 2018. They have been displaying exceptional performances and they have won three Dreamhack titles to show for it. The Danish side has beaten some of the best teams in the competitive landscape of CS: GO including the likes oF Astralis, mousesports and Natus Vincere. Their chemistry and tactic execution has been phenomenal. Apart from team performances, the lineup has shown individual brilliance. It is fair to say that the lineup has all the making of the future No.1 team in the world.

MSL – The leader

The current in-game leader of the team, Mathias “MSL” Lauridsen has consistently shown that he can play in any position and can be the player on his day. In one of the grand finals of DreamHack, MSL completely demolished Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz in a 1v1 situation after an impressive play on the AWP. North might have a disappointing run in the FACEIT major, but we can give them the benefit of the doubt that their lineup is still young and looking at how the inexperienced on the competitive stage, they have won a lot and deserve an applause for it.

The team has undergone a strong development over the past few months and is entering the new season with more potential. Their stars, namely Magisk and Koffig, have proven to work against the best teams in the world. However, the lineup of in-game leader MSL still needs to gain some consistency and experience.

Team Liquid

The organization, Denial eSports abandoned the composition of the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. It was then that Team Liquid picked up the team. For them, they stepped in the discipline of Counter-Strike, as previously the Team Liquid banners were not presented on the CS-scene. They did multiple experiments in the year 2015.

The following year was a complete disaster for the team since they failed to lift a single title. Team Liquid even choked in the two finals they competed in. They failed to win even a single match in those two finals. In that year, they impressively competed in twenty-two competitions, however, failed to show decent results. At that time, their lineup even included one of the best players of 2018, Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev. However, the young starlet couldn’t carry the team to victory since no single man can win a title if the remaining four members of the team just can’t perform.

Twistzz stepping up the game

The team failed to achieve results in 2017. After failing to lift a trophy in the 30 competitions the team participated, s1mple parted ways from the team. However, after the departure of the star, the captain of the team and the time and currently active in the lineup, Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken went on to lift the title of the Americas Minor Championship Boston. This victory meant a lot of the team since it was the first title of the team in their dark competitive history and it defied the rumors of the roster to disband that were circulating in the community.  From 2017 to 2018, Liquid has made only two changes to its roster.

In 2018, Liquid continued to spread fear into the hearts of their opponents. They even made a couple of high profile changes to their lineup. First, they signed the veteran Keith “NAF” Markovic and then the made headlines in the competitive world after acquiring the services of Epitacio “TACO” Melo, one of the legendary players from former SK Gaming lineup. The team has managed to get themselves in the grand finals of six competitions this year. Out of six, they were the champions only once and on four of those occasions, they, unfortunately, met the best team in the world, Astralis. Their progress to multiple grand finals got them the third place in the HLTV rankings.

Final Verdict

Both of these teams have an extensive history and will surely be aiming to get the best result possible. These teams may not be the best but are surely amongst the best in CS:GO. They have little to no head to head record since these teams have met each other twice and on both occasions, North has come out victorious. However, this time around we are eyeing Liquid to get the victory. Even though North has beaten the likes of Astralis, they are known to come out short on the most interesting occasion. This match is without a doubt one of the most fascinating matches of the competition, even though it will be just a best of one match.

Team Liquid 1 – 0 North

Odds on bookmakers

Bookmakers	Liquid Odds		North Odds
	European	American	European	American
EGB.com	1.48	-208	2.38	+138.00
Betway	1.45	-222	2.55	+155.00
Loot.bet	1.40	-250	2.81	+181.00
GG.bet	1.51	-196	2.55	+155.00
Bet365	1.40	-250	2.75	+175.00