CS:GO: Team Liquid finally break tournament curse at IEM Sydney – Final Placements

After a string of heartbreaking near-misses, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams, albeit without one or two big names, descended on Sydney, Australia for the newest installment of the Intel Extreme Masters event – looking to secure the $100,000 top prize.

However, one squad stood out from the beginning and parlayed their early dominance into an overall victory – with Team Liquid finally breaking their big event ‘curse’ and ending up as top dogs.

[ad name=”article2″]

Team Liquid lead from the front

While their arch-nemesis Astralis decided to not travel to Australia, Team Liquid capitalized and looked to cement themselves as the team to beat when the Danes aren’t around.

• Read More: Sources: TYLOO expected to add Freeman to CS:GO roster

In their opening game, the North American squad dispatched of BOOT-d[S] pretty quickly before turning that momentum into back-to-back 2-0 sweeps of BIG and Ninjas in Pyjamas. Despite putting themselves into an advantageous position, Liquid were set with the tough task of taking on MiBR in the semi-finals.

However, Liquid showed why they are one of the best teams in the world, taking down the Brazilians in two maps – picking up 16-10 and 19-15 maps wins to give themselves a grand finals spot.

Liquid and Fnatic battle in epic final

With their eyes firmly focused on a potential tier-one trophy win, the North American squad were faced with the tough task of meeting the resurgent Fnatic – who had progressed to the final behind eye-popping highlights from Jesper ‘JW’ Wecksell and Ludvig ‘Brollan’ Brolin.

From the first map of the best-of-five series, it appeared as if Liquid were destined to be in a classic knock-out brawl as the Swedes answered every round with one of their own – giving themselves a 1-0 map lead.

• Read More: Top 20 highest earning CS:GO pro players

Despite that, Liquid showed resilience and immediately answered serve with a 16-14 win on Overpass and rolled that into a 16-8 victory on Mirage. However, the Swedes responded with a dominant 16-6 Dust 2 win of their own to force the series to five maps. Yet, Liquid held their nerve and strung out a 16-9 win on Inferno to pick up the IEM Sydney title.

IEM Sydney 2019 – Final Placements