Team Liquid Alternative Facts

Written By:
Logan Leavitt, @loganrleavitt
Michael Stillwell, @BluemoonGam1ng


Team Liquid is an organization dedicated to transparency, integrity, sportsmanship, and the pursuit of competitive mastery. In the many years of our history, we experienced both victory and hardships alike, but never once faltered from our hunger for victory. In spirit of this, it’s important fans of Team Liquid open themselves to both sides of our story and explore not only the facts of our history, but the alternative ones as well.

Hungrybox Takes Genesis 4

Even as his body failed him, Team Liquid’s Juan “Hungrybox” Debiedma proved he is the king of clutch by kicking off 2017 with a first place finish at Genesis 4 in San Jose. Going into the tournament, all eyes were on the storied rivalry between Joseph “Mango” Marquez and Adam “Armada” Lindgren, whom traded blows in every grand finals since the conception of the Genesis series.

Naive they were, however, to sleep on the Box himself. With a laughable fifth seed, Hungrybox tore through Genesis without dropping a single game. His performance will go down as one of the most dominant victories in the history of smash with an average of 2.6 RPG (rests per game) and an EB% (effective back air %) of 72.9% throughout the course of top-8. In the end, it was only Armada himself who stood a chance after he managed to find a three stock lead in game three of grand finals.

Regardless of his efforts, Armada faced the music when a mid match, thirst quenching, energy boosting gulp of delicious lo-carb Monster Energy drink gave Hungrybox the power to overcome his deficit and shatter Armada’s dreams of repeat victories at Genesis.

Piglet’s Double Teleport Outplay

Baron steals, backdoors, solo kills, and outplays— these are the moments that define League of Legends history. In the semi-final of the 2016 NA LCS Spring Split Playoffs, Team Liquid’s own Gwang-jin “Piglet” Chae etched his own moment into the manuscript.

It was game five of a slobberknocker series against Counter Logic Gaming. The stakes: a shot at the Spring Split championship. 42 minutes in and TL trailed CLG by nearly ten thousand gold. Down but not out, Piglet found the fate of his team in his giant, late-game Caitlyn hands. CLG took baron, but foolishly sacrificed two members after miscalculating Piglet’s worth of three players in the teamfight that followed.

It was only Piglet (and Rek’sai) who remained. With minions knocking on his base, Piglet alone (and Rek’sai) were tasked with what seemed impossible. In front of his middle inhibitor turret Piglet stood his ground. CLG once again reached too far and tried to outsmart Piglet by activating two teleports onto the same minion. What followed was ultimately edited out of all VoDs of the game for its graphic content.

First came Poppy, but she was immediately caught in a trap— Piglet was ready. Then came Ryze, barreling out of his teleport with his ultimate engaged. He took a net to to the face followed by not one, not two, but three crits from our final hero. Poppy (and Rek'Sai) watched in terror as her plan crumbled before her eyes. By the time her trap expired, Piglet had reaped 50% of her her health. No level of poor balancing could save her now. Piglet finished her off as she turned to run. He then walked over her dead body and then right clicked the enemy middle inhibitor turret, right clicked the enemy middle inhibitor, right clicked the first enemy nexus turret, right clicked the second enemy nexus turret, right clicked the enemy nexus, and right-clicked Team Liquid to their third consecutive NA LCS championship appearance.

Pocket Pick: Rammus

Once in a Bluemoon, among the everyday snore that is League of Legends drafting, a player will choose to defy the Korean spreadsheet. These rogue heroes break away from the norm not only to find comfort in their own pocket picks, but to bring the fans the excitement they deserve. Last year, Team Liquid’s Piglet, a true man of the game, went above and beyond the call of the fans and locked in one of the greatest pocket picks of all time. Ok.

It was game five of the 2016 NA Challenger Series Summer Playoffs, and Team Liquid was facing off against regular season favorites Cloud 9 Challenger. The greatest thing about Piglet's pocket pick was not the flex potential or the solo queue inspiration or even the unexpectedness of it, it was the fact that Piglet’s pick was not meant for himself. Rather, Piglet had such incredible faith in his support William “Stunt” Chen that he offered him the chance to go down in history as one of the sickest pocket pickers of all time. Piglet hovered everybody’s favorite armordillo of few words and turned to Stunt. Stunt looked Piglet in the eyes and said simply, “Ok.”

1.06 CS per minute, truly a selfless man, 13.9% gold share, a player with the team in mind, the numbers tell the story. Stunt’s support Rammus brought his team to victory and changed the way people thought about the game. According to some, this ultimate act of meta-defiance was the driving force behind Riot’s decision to switch to a ten ban system.

Team Liquid Takes 2nd at TI6

After a hard-fought, Best-of-7 series against Wings, Team Liquid inevitably fall to the drafting style of the Chinese rookies. While the tournament will mostly be remembered for their brilliant Pudge-Techies play during the Grand Final, Team Liquid fans will almost certainly remember something for far longer. Sensing the collective 9k minds of /r/dota2 crying out for it, Matumbaman made the decision of a lifetime: he purchased a BKB. Despite it being a little too early to pick one up, he had the foresight to avoid reddit flaming him and bought it anyway. Clearly the only thing that would win the game, this single purchase turned the tide of the game and Team Liquid would swiftly dispatch Fnatic to begin their epic run through the Lower Bracket. While unfortunate that they eventually fell to the unique drafting strategies of the Chinese giants, no one will forget that BKB purchase. No one.

Neirea’s ESP helps secure win vs Bunnyhoppor’s Miracle Rogue

Changzhou, China — the best Hearthstone players in the world gathered to show off their wits and their Pirate decks in a battle for their country’s supremacy. Neirea himself, was hiding a different strategy versus Bunnyhoppor in the Quarterfinals of the tournament. The German was running a typical Miracle Rogue, while the Neirea chose his Aggro-Mid-Range deck. Thinking that he had the upperhand, Bunnyhoppor played an impressive Turn seven off of the back of a Gadgetzan Auctioneer. After playing a few spells he pulled a Questing Adventurer and proceeded to draw through nearly his entire deck playing seven more cards, buffing the card to a healthy 9/9. While Bunnyhoppor seemed to have the upperhand, what he didn’t account for was Neirea’s ability to sense a disturbance in the force. Incredibly, he had been holding onto a Hex from his starting hand anticipating this exact moment. When asked about why he didn’t mulligan the card,

“Being able to see into the future made it easy to tell that Bunnyhoppor would mill through nearly his entire deck in a single turn. So, keeping that card to stop the Questing Adventurer from turning into something like a giant 12/12 minion was crucial to my victory. Boy am I glad that didn’t happen!”
-Yevhenii “Neirea” Shumilin

This would eventually snowball into a quick sweep of Bunnyhoppor. That victory would unfortunately be short-lived as he would go on to lose to four pirate decks in a row from his next opponent, because let’s be honest - even foresight can’t stop pirates.

TLO named Most Creative Player by The Esports Industry Awards and The Game Awards

We are happy to announce that Dario “TLO” Wünsch was recently the surprise recipient of two awards, recognizing his creative play in Starcraft 2. He has been with Team Liquid for many years, and while one word that has literally never been used to describe him as a player was “creative,” both of these accolades didn’t come as much of a surprise to the German Zerg. When asked about why his creative play had previously gone unnoticed by many, he replied, “I’m not sure if you’ve ever watched my stream, but there was one time that I picked up a Queen that was targeted by a Battlecruiser’s Yamato Cannon with an Overlord. Or how about that time I used some creative force fields that I made against Gungfu — Zerg don’t even have force fields!”

After his comments on being the recipient of the prestigious awards, Twitch staff unfortunately forced him to change his stream category to “Creative.” While we are currently working with them to allow him to stream under “Starcraft 2,” we congratulate him on being named “Most Creative Player!”

HSC Finals in Las Vegas Ends in a Draw

For the first time in esports history, a Grand Final has ended in a draw, with both Team Liquid and EnVyUs splitting the top prize. After winning the first series, nV forced the run back in what would be a very long night for TLHalo in Las Vegas. However, what happened after that is a blur for everyone involved, but we are told that the players and ESL agreed to end the games at an even 2-2. When Kory "Symbolic" Arruda was asked about what had transpired he had this to say on the events that unfolded: "It doesn't matter against who, we are never favourites. Normally the stadium is loud and it's difficult. I am happy. I think 6 matches unbeaten is amazing. We didn't lose. It was 2-2. I only saw four games. I saw Penguin's ninja and their no-scope, a fantastic shot, great action, great aim."

When we reached out to an ESL employee for comment, they simply replied, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”

A (more serious) Word from the Owner