Counter Strike Global Offensive has been in a state of flux. There is a clear divide in the form of teams before the Major and right now. The two top teams during the first half of 2017, SK & Astralis have not been as strong in the first half of the year. As the year progresses, we see a few more teams come up to our notice. Most notable amongst these teams are Faze and Liquid. Both the teams have shown tremendous resolve and an upward tick in their performances.

At least one of these two teams has been in the final of a big LAN tournament post the Major. While Liquid made some changes to the roles of their players, Faze made some roster changes during the player break. Let’s take a look at the progress of each of these teams. This article is a part of a three part series where we will discuss the various teams and their standings in the current esports scenario.

Liquid

Team Liquid have been a revelation in the matches post the player break. Going into the Player Break, the NA squad, according to reports was on the verge of breaking up / disbanding. Their poor results despite adding Twistzz in April 2017 only made things difficult for them. They were unable to qualify for the PGL Krakow Major after losing in Double Overtime match against Flipside.

Team Liquid made a strategic roster changes they brought in Stanislaw into the team as an In Game Leader. Stanislaw is still considered to be one of the best In Game Leaders in North America. The Liquid players were, however, unable to adapt to his style of functioning. The team was unable to improve their results and the loss to Flipside in the Major qualifiers was the last straw. Over the course of the extended break for Team Liquid, the players had time to ponder over their performance and possibly their future.

Ultimately the team decided on making some changes in their roles within the game. With Stanislaw’s leadership not working well for the team, Team Liquid reinstated Nitro as the Shot caller within the team.This was primarily possible due to the newest additions within the roster. Twistzz is a well known player and definitely one player who is vouched for by majority of the NA players. His performance with his previous teams has brought him a lot of attention. With more firepower added to the team, Nitro could afford to go to the In Game Leader position without causing a huge loss in firepower for the team. The minor shuffling of roles helped the team a lot as the team saw a turnaround in their fortunes.Their results have improved dramatically ever since and multiple final appearances only confirm the same.

Team Liquid’s Results:

2nd place at ESG Mykonos 2nd place at ESL One New York Group stage exit at Eleague CS GO Premier

The three events represent a broad spectrum of the teams invited and the overall skillset. ESG Mykonos had very few ‘strong’ teams. The majority of the teams were comparatively weak or at least not in the same tier as Nitro and Co. Team Liquid were able to get through to the playoffs after qualifying from Group B. Frankly Team Liquid did not look as impressive in the Group stage. They narrowly scraped through their matches against BIG Gaming. In fact, thanks to the tournament format they only had to defeat BIG Gaming in their run to the playoffs. The team looked like a new version of themselves in the Playoffs. They were able to defeat two of the favorite teams in these tournaments on multiple instances. SK and Astralis definitely have fallen off their peaks post the Major. But Liquid’s domination over these two teams was not something anyone expected in a consistent manner.

And yet that is exactly what we have been witness to in the last few tournaments. ESL One New York is the more important tournament when compared to Mykonos. Featuring several top teams from around the world, this International LAN was seen as the first big tournament after the Major. It was also the first tournament after the several roster changes on the bigger teams. With the likes of Astralis, SK, NaVi, Faze being a part of the team Team Liquid were not high on the list of expectant finalists. Even if their performance at Mykonos was a fluke and could possibly be attributed to lack of quality oppositio, Liquid were yet again able to defeat a tournament favorite, Astralis on their way to the finals. They however were yet again unable to finish the last step and fell flat to a Faze team (who are one of the other teams in focus here).

It’s pretty impressive to watch how consistent @EliGE & @TwistzzVD have been for Liquid vs the best teams in the world. — Pujan Mehta (@FNScsgo) September 30, 2017

Twistzz and JDM have been the top fraggers for the team consistently. Their dominance with the Rifle and the AWP respectively is proving to be a nice combination for Liquid. JDM in particular, can hold off certain areas on the maps on his own accord. It frees up a lot of spsace for the team This is not to take away anything from the other members on the team. Their support and the fact that they executed their roles on the team to perfection enabled Twistzzz and JDM to have match winning performances. Elige is the other fragger who has had the most impact for the team. He has consistently been able to get the important frags and do cleanup for the team. Leaving his peers behind by a large margin, his impact for the team is much more than the scoreboard.

Team Liquid are one of the top teams in the world right now and definitely the best team in North America. However the more difficult task for them would be to maintain their current form. With the next Major still quite some time away, Team Liquid will be the team to beat for many of the upcoming and existing dominant teams.

Faze Clan

The Faze organisation has singular aim : to be the very best in CSGO. Their roster changes and player movements have all been towards establishing a very strong and better ranked team. Faze’s player rosters have had a strong and aggressive team right from the start.

Faze have made three major player signings in 2017. The first was Niko way back in February of 2017. With Niko on the roster, the team was strong and was consistently making it to the quarterfinals of almost all the LAN events that they attended. However they just could never get past the quarterfinals especially in the face of teams such as Astralis and SK.They continued to remain the “just qualified to playoffs team”. Admittedly teams such as SK and Astralis were much better in the first half of 2017. Unlike their present form SK Gaming in particular was seemingly unbeatable.

No one would have blamed Faze for underperforming during this period. However post the Major, Faze got a wonderful opportunity to create a team that they believe can be the best in the world. Several teams underwent roster changes and breakups after Krakow. One of the biggest and first changes that was rumored was a breakup within NaVi. With NaVi in tatters post the Major, Faze moved in quick to acquire Guardian from NaVi. With Olofmeister also joining the team the roster looked extremely strong.

Their latest tournament in attendance was ESL One New York 2017. They were able to get a very easy victory against Team Liquid and won the $125,000 first place money after a 3:0 victory over Team Liquid. Faze’s performance has been led by Niko and Rain’s consistence. The two players have been consistently on top of the scoreboard even in the company of veterans such as Karrigan, Guardian and Olofmeister.

Faze represents a mixture of experience and the decision making of players such as Guardian, Olofmeister. The fact that these two players are doing all the heavy lifting removes a lot of pressure from the other players. Once those players also start getting back into form, this team can truly become a dominant team. Faze still have a long way to go, but we have already seen glimpses of their potential in the past few weeks. The performance of the team in the next few weeks will go a long way towards fully understanding the team.

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