Team Liquid swat away Vitality in JT's debut

In our three teams to watch article, we wondered if Liquid fancied their chances against Vitality for a reason. Well, as it turns out, they did.

Liquid just 2-0’d Vitality in Blast Bounty with the debut of this roster, a result we didn’t dare predict in that same article. Usually when you have a vision of a team being good, it’s called a vision because it’s projecting to the future; in this instance, the future was the first event. Both new players made a notable impact on this game.

Just look at Anubis, Liquid’s pick of map and the series opener.

The highest-rated player for the NA side was JT, and that didn’t come at the expense of his calling. Not at all. Liquid actually played a very good T-side. Of the 9 rifle/force rounds played between the two sides in that half, the Ts won 7; Vitality only managed two real rounds besides the pistol and conversion.

That was actually the trend on Liquid’s CT-side too.

They started a lot slower, not just losing the pistol but the first four rounds. Still, they recovered, winning six CT rounds on Anubis, which is easily the most T-sided map we have at the moment. While malbsMd was the man who fragged the most to make this feat happen, Jorko needs to get his flowers here. Sure, he went 7-6 this half, nothing crazy, but he also went 2/2 on opening duels while maintaining a positive swing and rating. Not to kick him while he’s down, but ultimate could literally never.

Nuke was even better for the Bulgarian.

He had a slow opening half, but not a lot was required of him. Which in this case, is a good thing, malbs and EliGE, were the treacherous twins of the CT side. EliGE especially was on the sort of heater we haven’t seen from him in years. He even carried that into the T-side, complementing his 14 CT kills with another 11 and only 5 deaths; only one other Liquid player matched him.

Jorko went band for band with EliGE on T-side Nuke, stepping into the hole left by malbs slowing down. He was incredibly impressive; he hit flashy shots and also kept things clean when they needed to be. Between him and JBOEN, CS2 seems to have its AWP renaissance.

All in all, yes, this is online CS, and yes, there was no data to prepare for Liquid, but this team finally makes sense, and so long as Jorko isn’t a flash in the pan, they’re no longer stuck with defective pieces.

This is going to be a fascinating season, isn’t it?