Team Liquid

Team Liquid is an esports organization, founded in the Netherlands in 2000. Originally a StarCraft: Brood War clan, the team switched to StarCraft II during the SC2 Beta in 2010, and became one of the most successful western teams. On December 6, 2012, it was announced that the team had formed a Dota 2 division.[1] The team won The International 2017, and was also the runner-up of The International 2019.

Team Liquid is also strongly associated with its website, TL.net. Launched on May 1, 2001, it has developed through the years into a focal point for StarCraft and Dota 2 coverage, eventually becoming the most-browsed StarCraft-related website in the world, gathering thousands of members (including several professional players) and centralizing news about the global SC2 scene. On August 30, 2012, Teamliquid.net announced expansion into Dota 2 coverage.[2] The website also features a progaming database, the TLPD, as well as a wiki dedicated to Brood War, StarCraft II, Hearthstone, Dota 2, Super Smash Brothers: Melee, Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch, Liquipedia.

The team's original incarnation has roots in a North American lineup headed by FLUFFNSTUFF called FIRE, that went on to represent compLexity Gaming at The International 2012. Following an early knockout, the coL squad disbanded with TC, ixmike88, and FLUFFNSTUFF moving over to Liquid and joining BuLba, who competed at TI2 with Evil Geniuses, and Korok, formerly of Quantic Gaming.

In 2013 the team established itself as one of the premier North American organizations with this roster, placing highly in events such as the Raidcall D2L, The Defense, The Premier League, and the American Dota League in addition to securing an invite to The International 2013. After a rocky start they fell into the lower half of the bracket by a thin margin, which saw them defeat MUFC and then had one of their defining moments in a stellar performance against LGD.cn, knocking the Chinese behemoth out of the event. A loss to the defending champions Invictus Gaming saw them out in 7-8th place.

After the event the roster changed once more, with ixmike going inactive to focus on ixdl, and Korok leaving for school. qojqva of mousesports and Waytosexy of Dignitas eventually filled the ranks. After a strong start in online leagues and group stages, the team had major stumbles at both Fall LAN events, falling early at both MLG Columbus and DreamHack Winter. By early Winter, the team started to falter in it's online play as well, with the frustration boiling over and being shown by FLUFFNSTUFF on his TL.net blog.[42] The blog resulted in an ultimatum for FLUFF: win as captain, or be removed from the team.[43] The team failed to improve, and Liquid soon parted ways with Fluff. After trialing a few players, including Sneyking, DeMoN was added to the roster to take his place.

Despite some early promise, the team still struggled, falling to EG and North American Rejects in straight sets, and in doing so, failing to qualify for The Summit 1. Shortly after, TL lost to EG in the final stages of the ESL One Frankfurt qualifiers. Due to the teams recent struggles, they were not invited as a direct seed to The International 2014, and instead had to fight through another set of qualifiers. Liquid ended the group stage tied for first, setting up a winners finals against NAR, a team they had yet to ever take a match off. Liquid fell 0-2, setting up a match against ex-Liquid players ixmike and FLUFF on their new team Sneaky Nyx Assassins. After a close game one, Liquid appeared to have captured the momentum and convincingly took game two, advancing them to play NAR in the finals. The finals ended up being much more back and forth than any other set between the teams, but after the delayed final game and Liquid's eventual defeat, they were forced to settle with a Play-In position for TI4.

Following up their disappointing TI 2014 qualifiers, the team continued to experiment with juggling their roles while playing in the Gigabyte Challenge #4. Demon moved to the carry or offlane, with TC moving to support. The team showed some early success against we Try and Relax, but stumbled again when they hit NAR in the semi finals. Liquid capped off the month with a disappointing group stage exit in the HyperX D2L Western Challenge.

In early June, the team did manage a small bright spot, with their second place finish in the second season of the American Dota League, losing to mousesports 1-3 in the finals. The team also shuffled positions slightly again, with BuLba moving to support, and Demon to the offlane. The tournament marked Team Liquid's last official matches before fighting for the wildcard spot in Seattle in a month and a half's time.

Although Liquid earned a trip to Seattle, they still needed four wins to make their way into the main event of the tournament. First up was the favourite CIS Game, coming out of China, and led by Black^. Heavily favoring the picks of Skywrath Mage for BuLba and Tidehunter for DeMoN, Liquid crushed CIS in two straight games, with a combined kill score of 49-12. This would advance them forward to face MVP Phoenix, who had won their series against Virtus.pro on the other side of the bracket. After a close first match in which TL came out on top, Liquid were able to ride the momentum and close out the series in convincing fashion in the second match, qualifying for the main event without losing a game.

At the main event, Liquid stumbled out the of the blocks with another loss to nemesis Na`Vi.US (ex-NAR), but bounced back in a major way with wins over favourites Newbee, EG and DK in Day 1. In Day 2, TL continued to rack up wins, beating Empire and Fnatic, but lost three, to Cloud9, LGD, and most notably, Arrow Gaming, a loss that would haunt them in the next stage. In Day 3, Liquid managed to defeat the previous two TI winners, Invictus Gaming and Alliance, with an additional win over Titan, but also dropped two matches, one to Natus Vincere, and one to Vici Gaming. Liquid only had one game on Day 4, with a win guaranteeing them at least top 6 in the group stage, and top 8 overall. Unfortunately, mousesports went on to defeat them, and Liquid finished in a 4 way tie for 5th spot, but fell to 7th after accounting for the tie-breaking rules.

Their 7th place in group put them up against LGD Gaming in the next round, the team Liquid upset in the previous year. They would face off again in an elimination match, loser walking home with ~$50,000 USD, and the winner guaranteed at least ten times that. This year was different from the previous though, and LGD outclassed Liquid, convincingly taking two straight games, and knocking Liquid out of the tournament in 9th-10th place.

The post-TI shuffle was not kind to Liquid. It was announced DeMoN had departed a couple weeks after the event, quickly followed up by waytosexy. About a week later, Team Tinker appeared, featuring both BuLba and qojqva. Many hoped this was a trial for a new roster for Liquid, but after less than a month, it was revealed that the two had left the Liquid organization. Being the last man standing, TC left Liquid in early October 2014, leaving Liquid without a Dota roster for the first time in two years.

On October 9th, 2015, Team Liquid announced their re-entry into the Dota 2 scene with their signing of 5Jungz. Team Liquid saw their first real test in the European qualifier for The Frankfurt Major 2015, but failed to qualify after being knocked out by The Alliance 1-2 in the lower bracket. Liquid's first LAN event, the Nanyang Dota 2 Championships in Singapore, came about a month later. In the following months, TL continued to attend and do well at premier events, with a 3rd place in World Cyber Arena 2015 and 5-6th place at The Summit 4. Within two months of formation, Team Liquid won Dota 2 Champions League Season 6.[44] They also secured their first LAN win at The Defense Season 5 at the Freaks 4U Gaming offices in Berlin, Germany, where they defeated the Frankfurt Major Champions OG in a best of 5 grand final.[45] With the great success Team Liquid achieved in such a short span of time, things were looking up into the new year of 2016.

Team Liquid's success continued on to The Shanghai Major in March 2016, where the team was able to reach second place, losing to Team Secret in the grand finals. Following their silver medal was another at ESL One Manila, where they lost to Wings Gaming in the finals. Finally taking home a win at a large LAN, Team Liquid won EPICENTER in Moscow over Newbee 3-2. Returning to Manila for The Manila Major, Liquid was again defeated in the Grand Finals, this time by OG. After the two Majors, TL was among the teams that were directly invited to The International 2016.

The 2016-2017 season started off poorly for Team Liquid. In the wake of The International 2016, FATA- left the team to take a break from competitive Dota 2 and JeraX joined Team Liquid's rivals OG. They were in turn replaced by OG's own Miracle- and BuLba, who joined on September 16. However, the new team was unable to find success after the shuffle and failed to qualify for the Boston Major. Following more disappointing results, BuLba became inactive and the team found GH to sub in. With GH as stand-in, Team Liquid won their first LAN event in months at DreamLeague Season 6, in November 2016. GH officially replaced BuLba on the squad on January 2 2017. The improved results continued as the team secured the qualifiers for both the Dota 2 Asia Championships 2017 and StarSeries Season 3, which they went on to win in February 2017.

Despite a disappointing result at DAC 2017, being eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by Team Faceless, Team Liquid received an invite to the Kiev Major. They placed 5-8th at the Major, going down to Invictus Gaming, the victors of DAC 2017, in the second round.

After the conclusion of the Kiev Major, it was time to look forward to The International 2017. Only a few opportunities remained to secure an invite for the most prestigious event of the year and the culmination of the competitive season. Their first test, would be to secure a spot at the LAN Finals of DreamLeague Season 7, held in Atlanta in July. The team managed to qualify by finishing second in the European Divison behind Team Secret. They also swept the competition in Shanghai at the StarLadder i-League Invitational #2, in May, beating TNC Pro Team 3-2 in the Grand Finals. Finally, Team Liquid successfully defended their EPICENTER title in Moscow as they defeated Evil Geniuses 3-1 in the grand finals after narrowly qualifying for the playoffs and battling through the knockout stages, beating heavyweights Virtus.Pro and LGD.Forever Young in the process.[46]

Two LAN wins and one successful qualifier for another LAN meant that Team Liquid would be among the six invited teams to attend The International 2017,[47] making this KuroKy's seventh TI. But their preparation wasn't done before TI, as Team Liquid still had DreamLeague Season 7 to attend, alongside Team Secret, Vega Squadron, and Planet Odd. Beating Planet Odd 3-2 in the finals, Team Liquid secured their third consecutive LAN win.

Team Liquid would come into The International 2017 as one of the favorites. For the Group Stage, they would be seeded into Group A alongside other such favorites as Evil Geniuses, LGD Gaming, and Team Secret amongst others. After a strong start to the Group Stage, Liquid found themselves in a neck-and-neck race with LGD Gaming for the top seed of their group, which Team Liquid finally were able to secure with an overall score of 13-3. This meant that they would be allowed to pick their opponent in the Upper Bracket of the Main Event from the 3rd and 4th placed teams from Group B: Virtus.pro or Invictus Gaming. Unwilling to face the aggressive Russian squad, Team Liquid chose iG as their first opponent.

However, the first series of the main event did not go as planned and Team Liquid dropped down to the Lower Bracket after losing 1-2 to iG. To make it to the Grand Finals, they would have to make a run similar to Digital Chaos's run at The International 2016. Their first opponent in the Lower Bracket would be Team Secret, to whom they lost the first game of the series. Team Liquid found themselves one game away from elimination, but not for the last time at this event. Beating out the surprise contender Team Empire, fellow favorites Virtus.pro and LGD Gaming, Team Liquid managed to reach the Lower Bracket final, where they faced another surprise contender in LGD.Forever Young. LFY had managed to nearly sweep Group B, after only dropping two games and hadn't dropped a game on the main stage until the Upper Bracket Final against Newbee. LFY quickly proved themselves a formidable opponent and after the first game of the Lower Bracket final, Team Liquid found themselves once again with their backs against the wall. However, they prevailed yet again and turned the series around on the back of MinD_ContRoL's Nature's Prophet. Team Liquid had reached the Grand Final, where Newbee waited. Team Liquid had never dropped a series to Newbee and this time would be no different: Liquid swept the series 3-0 in dominant fashion, claiming their first Dota Major Championship and becoming the seventh winner of The International[48] and over 10 million USD in prize money.

This would be the first time that a TI Grand Final would end in a 3-0 sweep as well as the first time a team made up of 5 different nationalities would win the Aegis. Newbee's Faith, who was part of the Invictus Gaming roster that won The International 2012, was also denied his second TI win. Liquid's victory also continued the tradition of the TI winner alternating between Chinese and Western teams.

2017 Team Liquid Lasse “MATUMBAMAN” Urpalainen Amer “Miracle-” Al-Barkawi Ivan Borislavov “MinD_ContRoL” Ivanov Maroun “GH” Merhej Kuro “KuroKy” Salehi Takhasomi

Unsurprising to most, Team Liquid would not make any changes to their roster after winning The International 2017. The team also started out the new season with a bang, by instantly winning the first Minor of the DPC, SLi Season 3. Throughout the season, Liquid went on to dominate in various Minors, by winning three out of the five Minors they attended (SLi Season 3, DotaPIT Season 6, and SLi Season 4) and achieving 2nd and 3rd at the other two Minors (ESL One Genting and DreamLeague Season 9, respectively).

As well as Team Liquid was doing at the Minors, the Majors were a somewhat different story. In the first and second thirds of the season, they remained a competitive force, achieving top four in first four Majors. However, early exits in two Majors at the end of the season had fans and experts alike concerned: at DAC 2018, they were eliminated in a Bo1 by TNC Predator and at ESL One Birmingham, they were upset by the Brazilian paiN Gaming. Furthermore, at EPICENTER Team Liquid were defeated in the Grand Finals by PSG.LGD, making it the first EPICENTER tournament not won by Liquid. Despite their troubles at Majors, Team Liquid easily achieved enough DPC points to qualify for a direct invite to The International 2018, by the time EPICENTER concluded in early May 2018.

As such, it came as a bit of a surprise to some when Team Liquid went on to dominate the final and biggest Major of the season, the Supermajor. Other than their first game of the tournament, Liquid did not drop a single game until the Grand Finals. Their eleven game winning streak was only stopped in the Grand Finals, where they met the giants of the DPC Season, Virtus.pro. Team Liquid went on to defeat VP 3-2, in an exciting back-and-forth final series. Going into TI8, Team Liquid was thus able to end the season with a positive highlight.

The International 2018 saw Team Liquid enter as a huge favorite to be the first double TI winner. Seeded into group A, alongside fellow favorites PSG.LGD and DAC 2018 champions Fnatic, Liquid took a strong start to the tournament, ending the first two days in the top two. On the third day of the group stage, after winning all six games, Liquid easily took the first spot of the group ahead of Evil Geniuses and PSG.LGD and kept it till the end.

In the opening round of the playoffs, they were seeded against OpTic Gaming, whom they easily defeated 2-0. However, their run in the Upper Bracket was stopped short in the next round, where they were swept by PSG.LGD, who eventually would be the runner-up of the tournament. After sweeping Team Secret in the Lower Bracket round four, they were in turn were swept by EG in the Lower Bracket Semifinals, to finish The International 2018 in fourth place.

Once again, the team would not make any changes to their roster. However, their season wouldn't start as well as the previous. With qualifiers for the first Major starting a mere four weeks after the conclusion of TI, the players were barely left with any time to recuperate. Yet it would still be a huge shock when Liquid was surprisingly eliminated from the qualifiers by the brand new Team Lithium. Despite later on qualifying for the following Minor, the team decided to sit out the main event to receive the rest that they missed out on after TI.

Following the first Major, Liquid would return to the Pro Circuit, when they qualified as the second European team for the Chongqing Major in late November 2018. By December, it would look like Team Liquid was back in form as they easily won the MegaFon Winter Clash, without dropping a single map, ahead of teams such as Team Secret, Virtus.pro, and PSG.LGD. Unfortunately, just before their first Major of the season, carry Miracle- was unable to attend the event. With no time to secure a visa for a western stand-in, Team Liquid was forced to use Chinese TI-winning carry shadow as replacement. Despite the obvious communication issues, the team, together with shadow, were able to top their group. After they were dropped down to the lower bracket immediately by eventual champions Team Secret, they were eliminated in 7-8th place by Fnatic.

Immediately following the conclusion of the Chongqing Major, Liquid managed to qualify for the third Major of the season, the DreamLeague Season 11. Later that month, the team also attended MDL Macau. After topping the group, Liquid cruised to the Grand Finals, where they easily defeated Evil Geniuses 3-1 in extremely short games. It would be Liquid's second LAN victory of the season but was overshadowed by the massive disappointment of the third Major, one month later. After being denied an upper bracket berth in the group stage by a surprising Keen Gaming, they were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by Chaos Esports Club.

Following that disappointment, Liquid were able to regroup and easily qualified for the fourth Major of the season. Their result at this Major was like night and day compared to the previous one. Liquid were again facing off against Keen Gaming in a Decider Match in the group stage, but this time they were not denied and swept Keen relatively easily. However, they were immediately dropped down to the lower bracket by Evil Geniuses. But Liquid were able to rally and fought their way back all the way through the lower bracket, eliminating teams such as Vici Gaming, OG, and PSG.LGD on the way. In the lower bracket finals, they were then able to exact their revenge on EG, but were ultimately denied the Major championship by Team Secret, losing to them 3-1 in the Grand Final.

Following their result at MDL Disneyland Major, the team were once again qualified for The International 2019 through the DPC ahead of the conclusion of the season. After the Major, the team also qualified for the last Major of the season: EPICENTER, in Moscow, Russia, which they had one two times previously.

Despite already qualifying for TI and achieving second place at the last Major, on June 12th 2019, Finnish carry MATUMBAMAN was removed from the roster. He had already been part of the founding roster since before they were signed by Team Liquid, in October 2015, nearly four years ago. This would be the team's first roster change in 892 days[49], when GH officially joined the roster. The following week, Romanian mid w33 was confirmed as Matu's replacement.

On September 13th, the players of Team Liquid decided to leave and form their own organization. On October 2nd, Team Liquid picked up former Alliance players: miCKe, qojqva, Boxi, Taiga, and iNSaNiA. The roster did not achieve immediate success with a 1st place win, and with the postponement of DPC due to the outbreak of COVID-19, the roster stayed together thoughout the year, participating various online tournaments. After playing together for more than a year, they managed to win ESL One Germany 2020, the first tournament win under Team Liquid.

In 2021, DPC returned, although with a new format of regional leagues and majors, Team Liquid with the same roster still managed to qualify to both of the majors in the year. However, they were unable to secure DPC points, meaning they were unable to directly qualify to The International 2021 and have to play the qualifier. The team did not managed to win the qualifier, finishing in top 4 after a defeat by Team Nigma.

Changes were made to the roster, with qojqva shifting to a streamer role for Team Liquid, and Taiga leaving to join OG. Team Liquid signed MATUMBAMAN and zai, both player previously played for Team Secret. After more than halfway though the season, the team brought in JerAx as a coach, who previously played for Evil Geniuses and two-time TI winner. Although the roster managed to fare better in terms of securing DPC points, the team fell short of secuing the invite to The International 2022. The team also only managed to finish top 3 in the qualifier (instead of securing invite to TI), but this will mean the team will get to play the the Last Chance Qualifier for The Internatinal. In the Last Chance Qualifier, the team finally managed to qualify to The International, defeating Virtus.pro after previously being dropped to lower bracket by the same team. In The International 2022, Team Liquid achieved top 3 finish, including a match with Thunder Awaken in the playoffs that became popular at the time due to the closeness and clutchiness especially game 3.

After the conlusion of The International 2023, MATUMBAMAN announced retirement from the competitve scene as player, later Team Liquid signed Nisha who previously played for Team Secret. The roster engaged in a rivaly with team Gaimin Gladiators, with almost entirety of the year, Team Liquid only managed to achieve 2nd place, losing grand final to Gaimin Gladiators. The team managed to secure enough DPC points to directly qualify to The International 2023, they only managed to achieve a top 6 finish as they lost to Gaimin Gladiators.

In a similar fashion to MATUMBAMAN the year before, zai announced his indefinite break from competitve scene after The International 2023. Team Liquid signed 33, 33 also became the captain, together he and the team coach Blitz is mainly doing the drafting for the team in the new season.

Team Liquid at The International 2013From left to right:Fluff, Bulba, ixmike, TC, and Korok.

Team Liquid at The International 2014From left to right:Wayto, qojqva, TC, DeMoN, and BuLba.

Team Liquid at Nanyang Dota 2 ChampionshipsFrom left to right:MinD_ContRoL, KuroKy, MATUMBAMAN, JerAx and FATA-.

Team Liquid winning Dreamleague Season 7From left to right:MATUMBAMAN, GH, KuroKy, MinD_ContRoL and Miracle-.

Team Liquid winning TI7From left to right:Miracle-, MATUMBAMAN, KuroKy, MinD_ContRoL and GH

Team Liquid at EPICENTER XLFrom left to right:MinD_ContRoL, Miracle-, KuroKy, MATUMBAMAN and GH.

Team Liquid at EPICENTER Major 2019From left to right:MinD_ContRoL, w33, KuroKy, Miracle- and GH.

Team Liquid at WePlay AniMajorFrom left to right:Taiga, qojqva, iNSaNiA, SumaiL and miCKe.

Team Liquid at The International 2022From left to right:boxi, iNsania, m1CKe, zai, and MATUMBAMAN.

Team Liquid at The International 2023

Original logo(prior to December 31st, 2016)

Second logo(prior to September 17th, 2019)

Third logo(prior to February 4th, 2020)

Fourth logo(prior to February 21st, 2023)