On stream last Thursday, Poach confirmed that the organization will be testing out new pairs for duos in preparation for the Fortnite World Cup. The Fortnite World Cup made waves in the gaming community as the $100,000,000 total prize pool is unheard of for an Esports event. The World Cup will feature continuous $1,000,000 weekly prizes for online tournaments as well as a grand final in New York City for the top 100 solo players and 50 duos pairs. The NYC finale will feature $30,000,000 in total purse money, and the winner of the solo event will walk away with an astonishing $3,000,000. Needless to say, Liquid and other organizations are looking to fortify their competitive Fortnite squads before the action starts.

Team Liquid

Team Liquid ranks 2nd in my upcoming NA Organization Power Rankings. They have the most balanced roster of any Fortnite organization, consisting of Poach, 72hrs, Chap, and Vivid. Strafesh0t is also an alternate team member but should not expect to play in the World Cup. His VeLoScore of 7.45 is far lower than the average of Liquid’s starting members which is 46.3. Below are each Liquid player’s stats as featured in my Fortnite NA Player Power Rankings. To learn more about the rankings and what each metric measures, click here.

Player (rank) Organization # of Events VeLoScore Solo Adjusted Avg. Placement Duo Adjusted Avg. Placement Specialization Metric 72hrs (4) Liquid 18 53.13 18.33 31.77 -13.43 Poach (8) Liquid 15 40.55 26.33 26.79 -0.46 Chap (9) Liquid 19 35.70 39.17 14.63 24.54 Vivid (3) Liquid 17 55.85 17.83 21.59 -3.76

In the past, Vivid has paired with Poach and 72hrs with Chap. While the group practices together frequently during the week, the pairs have remained constant since the Summer Skirmish. Both pairs generally finish well, with this past weekend at the ESL Katowice being the only exception.

ESL Katowice Royale

The Katowice was the most recent major Fortnite Tournament, held in Katowice, Poland. The international event featured duos from all over the world and even a pair from Brazil. While only eighteen total NA players traveled to Poland to play in the event, the attending group was no joke. Almost all of the NA players to attend the tournament have been featured on one of the past issues of my Power Rankings as well as nine of the current top eleven ranked players.

At the ESL, the Team Liquid duos finished 28th and 38th respectively. The finishes were low especially for Team Liquid, and they marked the worst finish for either pair when playing together. It is unclear whether the poor showing at the ESL was what solely sparked the organization to change the duos pairs, but it is a reasonable assumption it played a part in the process. Poach’s announcement came late on Thursday (3/7) and was sparked by an on-stream donation. Poach opened up about the switch and what it meant for his potential duo partner going forward, saying,

“Yeah, we’re going to try out some new things for World Cup, for sure. Everyone needs to be comfortable with who they are playing with. I think, until World Cup, we are going to mix around duos and try to find what works best. So, today I will be doing the Duos Gauntlet with Chap.”

Here, Poach gives us the sense that there isn’t an inevitable switch looming in the future for Liquid, but merely the organization is allowing their pool of talented PC gamers find out the pairing that works best for them. By allowing all of their players to play together freely, the organization (and players) will get a better sense of each players’ strengths and weaknesses, ultimately allowing them to create the optimal set of duos pairs for their roster. It is unclear who decides the duos pairs for Liquid, but if the organization was smart, they would allow the players to make the decision for them.

New Solo Drop Spots for Poach and Chap

Poach also mentioned that he planned on finding a new solo drop spot during the Solo Gauntlet Event this past weekend. Chap, his partner for the day, emphasized the statement by saying he has also been looking for a new solo drop spot. Poach, and Chap both mentioned that they contemplated switching to one of the new locations, Lazy Lagoon, but decided the boat doesn’t contain enough farmable brick and metal to make it a viable drop location.

While Poach did not make a final comment on the matter in the aforementioned video, he showed off the spot in a YouTube video released yesterday, which for now is the mountain-high house just south of the bridge and entrance to the snow-covered portion of the map. He placed 10th in the event with the new landing spot.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the Gauntlet Event. In the coming week I will be releasing my Fortnite Organization Power Rankings as well as any relevant news in the Fortnite community that needs to be covered. Stay Tuned!