BIG vs Team Liquid

ESL One Belo Hortizonte 2018,

ESL One Belo Horizonte has arrived! Throughout the past few weeks, we have seen many online qualifiers for the available spots for the North American, European, and South American qualifiers. In the match-up we will be breaking down today, we will be looking at one of the two teams who qualified out of Europe; BIG, facing off against an invited team of Liquid. Let's take a look at these two teams.

Team Liquid :

Team Liquid has been on a steady climb recently after settling down with the two new additions to the team; NAF and TACO. Both of these new members have filled in the roles that were once sought out by the North American organization. NAF took on the role of clutch fragger and main rifler and has now solidified himself as a powerhouse in the server currently boasting an overall rating of 1.15. TACO has filled the role of support, and though his fragging capabilities are up to par with the rest of his team, that is not the role he excels at. TACO has taken over many games for Team Liquid by playing his own style of an aggressive support which creates spacing and advantages for strong riflers like NAF to take charge of important rounds. The combination of these individuals has allowed Liquid to hold a current global ranking of 5th in the world and has given the team two second-place finishes in the last two main offline events.

Team Liquid's map pool looks like this; Inferno is 14-7, Mirage is 13-7, Train is 7-7, Cache is 5-2, Nuke is 3-4, Overpass is 4-3, and Dust 2 is 3-2

BIG :

BIG peaked at a globally ranked number 10 a while back when they placed highly in the PGL Krakow Major of 2017. Since then, they have remained an upper tier 3 team but have yet to crack the top twenty since being dropped ever slowly. BIG recently made a roster change, with ditching the talents of KEEV for the up and coming British talent of Smooya, who has proven his capabilities time and time again in the online world of FACEIT PRO LEAGUE. I believe this will be Smooya's first large offline event with the team and hopefully, the nerves don't get to him, but watching his will be a fun time for everyone to see how he will perform.

BIG's map pool looks like this; Overpass is 7-4, Train is 3-5, Cache is 4-2, Inferno is 4-1, Nuke is 2-0, Dust 2 is 1-0 and Mirage has yet to be played.

Map Pick/Ban :

This is a best of three series, each team will ban one map, pick one map, and ban one more. The last map remaining will be the deciding map played if the series extends to it. Team Liquid will want to ban out maps Overpass and Cache. BIG will want to ban out Mirage and Inferno. Leaving Train, Nuke, and Dust 2. Based on the map pools combined with the level of play each team is currently playing at, I give the map advantage to Team Liquid.

Final Thoughts:

This map is a best of three and Team Liquid has beaten much better teams in a best of three series prior to this event. Going back to StarSeries and the most recent ECS Season 5, Team Liquid have proved there worth time and time again. This time should be no different, Medium bet on Team Liquid.