Team Liquid vs Astralis

The grand final match of ESL Pro League Season 7 is finally here. In a best of 5 series, mighty Astralis would face Liquid. It is a surprise that team Liquid came so far on this tournament and anything is possible now.

Let's start with a statistics:

Liquid

Rank: 9

Matches: 831

Won: 487 Draw: 0 Lost: 344

Win ratio: 59%

Opponent avg. rank: 34.29

Astralis

Rank: 1

Matches: 551

Won: 352 Draw: 1 Lost: 198

Win ratio: 64%

Opponent avg. rank: 23.94

Out of 5 last matches, Astralis won every single one and Liquid only lost to Astralis.

Head to head: Liquid 7 - 16 Astralis

Lineups:

Astralis: dev1ce, duupreh, xyp9x, gla1ve, Magisk

Liquid: nitr0, EliGE, Twistzz, NAF, TACO

I said anything is possible, it is the fact that Liquid is standing on a finish line to win this tournament but it would take a miracle for Liquid to beat Astralis at this stage. Astralis is currently the best team in the world. They justified that yesterday with a stunning 2-0 (16-3, 16-6) victory against Faze. Considering that Astralis had a problem with devices illness and a recent roster change with Magisk boy replacing Kyaerbye things turned out better than they could imagine. They are better than ever for them. They did not lose a single map on this tournament and I believe they would win this match with handicap too. Why is that?

Astralis is the team with greatest moral due to the fact that nobody owns them. They don't play for salaries, they have to earn every penny and the money from prize fonds is what is keeping this team alive. Every other player from tier 1 teams has a salary, paid flights and hotels. It is different to play if you have so much to lose. If you pay from your own pocket to get there and play that tournament. That is why they can always come back, they had to do it because they are professionals and there is more at stake for them than for any other team.

Earlier in this tournament, these 2 teams already met in a best of 3 series at the finals of B group upper bracket.

Astralis handled that match like a school project with a 2-0 victory, they won pistol rounds, hold economy in their favor, use early aggression to get map control. Dev1ce used all available information to reposition as AWP player and confuse the opponent. Communication in the team is better than ever, they know how to handle pressure, how to use man advantage if given and how to close the rounds and on top of that save when it is necessary. I got nothing but words of praise for them and their gameplay in the last couple of months and especially at this tournament.

On the other side, there is team Liquid with a great performance too. They did defeat some good tier 1 teams but they just could not handle Astralis and I believe they would not be able to do it today either. Last time these 2 teams player Liquid lost without a fight, they did reckless buys, no hamlets. They let Astralis outsmart them and with a few reset rounds, things were over before they even start. The best teams in the world can come back from anything, they just took a tactical timeout to calm and after that, it looks like it is a completely different team. Liquid is not one of them, they easily panic, the force with no money and without hamlets they got killed by pistols which frustrates them even more. They are not up for this task and I would go with handicap win here.

My final tip is a handicap win 7/10 on Astralis. GL & HF