Team Liquid vs BIG

ESL One Belo Horizonte 2018,

In my last tip, when I accurately predicted the upset that Mousesports would perform on favorite runner-up for this event Team Liquid, I was quick to write off BIG in this present match-up. However, since then, new information has come to the surface and I will hopefully be able to predict another upset in this event. Let's take a look at what this piece of information is that will shift the tides of this best of three encounter.

BIG :

In the first match-up against Team Liquid, BIG lost the series 0-2. But they did not lose by a huge deficit. Losing the first game 14-16 on Cache and the second 11-16 on Inferno. Not huge gaps, but enough to secure a victory for the North Americans. In this up and coming second best of three, BIG will have had time to look over the past maps and plays that did and did not work against Team Liquid and with GobB at the helm of this European excursion, I feel BIG can close out two games against the foes that put them into the losers brackets. Along with GobB's leadership and all three of the main riflers Tabsen, Nex, and Smooya all holding a 1.14 rating or higher. BIG has a solid chance for this upset.

BIG's map pool looks like this; Overpass is 8-4, Train is 2-6, Cache is 3-3, Inferno is 4-2, Dust 2 is 2-0, Nuke is 2-0 and Mirage is the permaban.

Team Liquid :

Besides the usual analysis on why Team Liquid is one of the best teams in the world and more so the current best team in all of North America, today I find a reason as to why they won't win against BIG. Along with the comment from TACO in the post-match when the original best of three series was played against BIG stating that "they are an organized team and are hard to play against". Plus Team Liquid are coming off a heavy loss to Mousesports with a stand-in. The main reason why I feel that Team Liquid will lose this game is that of the current condition of star rifler Twitzz. On twitter earlier tonight Twitzz stated that he had eaten a heavy plate of sushi and his stomach was not feeling well. If this is food poisoning or even just an upset stomach, Twitzz will not perform as he should in this game. Considering Twitzz is the best-rated member of Team Liquid with a rating of 1.13, this is not a good sign for the North American squad.

Team Liquid's map pool looks like this; Inferno is 14-8, Mirage is 12-6, Train is 5-7, Cache is 6-2, Nuke is 3-4, Overpass is 4-3 and Dust 2 is 3-2

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. BIG will likely take away Inferno from Liquid, learning from there mistakes, while also banning out Mirage. Team Liquid will ban maps Overpass and Nuke as previously done.

Final Thoughts:

This is a very risky bet that is based on a small chance that Twitzz will still have an upset stomach during this match, he may also not sleep well because of the sickness and I feel he will underperform heavily tomorrow on the stage. I hope Twitzz can make a speedy recovery as I am a fan of his and Liquid's, but today I feel BIG can pull off the upset. Low bet on BIG.