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We continue to follow the action at BLAST Lisbon 2025. The group stage is in full swing, with 6 teams being determined for the play-offs.
Among the contenders are Imperial and Liquid. However, the teams are far away from that, as they are still in the bottom part of the Group B grid.
We are trying to figure out who of the pair Liquid - Imperial will be stronger and will pass to the next stage of the group stage, while the loser will say goodbye to the prospects of playing in the main stage of the tournament.
Let's go.
Team Liquid's form
We open the Liquid vs Imperial match with an analysis of Liquid's form. In this match they will play as favourites with odds to win at around 1.6.
The American club had a pretty productive 2023 season. Played in a lot of tournaments, but high results were rare.
They started the year with a top-4 finish at IEM Katowice 2023, where they reached the top 4. Next was the equally good BLAST Premier: Spring American Showdown with a similar top-4, and then BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023: American RMR followed by a top-3 and a trip to the main tournament of the year.
Unfortunately for Liquid, that's where their results ended. At BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023, the team made it to the top 8 and that was their biggest achievement of the year.
After making it to the legends stage at the only Major tournament of the season, Liquid played at a lot of big events. These included IEM Dallas 2023 with a top-12 finish, BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2023 with a top-9 finish, and IEM Master Cologne with a top-12 finish.
At the end of the season they played at Gamers8 2023, finishing in the top 16 and ESL Pro League Season 18, finishing in the top 20. Closed the year with a second place finish at BLAST Premier: Fall American Showdown 2023.
- Team Liquid roster: NAF, YEKINDAR, skullz, cadiaN, Twistzz.
A string of failures at major championships has caused major roster changes. Such that Liquid in 2024 can be called the "Dream Team", but the status still has to be earned.
2024 began with qualifiers for the American RMR. They came out, which is not surprising. They also tried to qualify for IEM Chengdu 2024, but were not successful: Ledge and M80 made it to the finals of the qualifiers. However, they got a slot and made it to the top 6 at the tournament. The main performance in the 2024 season was PW Shanghai Major 2024, where Liquid finished in the top 8, which is not bad.
In the 2025 season, Team Liquid Long Competed with a top-16 finish at BLAST Bounty Spring 2025: Closed Qualifier and a top-12 finish at IEM Katowice 2025.
At ESL Pro League Season 21 Long Co-headlined with a loss to Falcons, but cameback against FURIA and Eternal Fire. Later lost to MOUZ, which brought them to a 2-2 score. In the play-offs match, they defeated 3DMax. In the play-offs itself, they lost to future champions Vitality in the first round.
At the BLAST Open Lisbon 2025 Long Sogpeg they were defeated by Eternal Fire (0-2).
Team Liquid Mappool
Team Liquid's top 1 map in the last 3 months is Mirage. Liquid has a mind-blowing winrate of 92% with 13 games played.
They also played on Inferno, where they won 5 matches out of 7 games. Nuke is also in plus winrate, where the "ninjas" have 3 wins from 5 matches.
The most not favoured map for Team Liquid will be Vertigo. There they have 6 maps and only 1 win.
Imperial Esports uniforms
We continue our review of Imperial vs Liquid match with an analysis of Imperial's form. The Brazilians are in outsider status with odds to win around 2.2.
The team spent the first half of the year at various qualifying events and TIR-2 tournaments. Among the rare results is a victory at the local championship TG Masters Spring 2023. Another notable failure was at EPL Season 17, where Imperial finished in the top 32.
Imperial's main Milestone was the performance at American RMR B, a qualifier for BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023. There, the Brazilian club finished in the top-12. Later there was a disappointing IEM Masters Rio 2023 and top-16 there.
- Imperial lineup: latto, dumau, NEKIZ, b4rtiN, saadzin.
Prior to the IEM Cologne 2023 Long Convergence, Imperial won the ESL Brazil Premier League Season 14 and finished in the top 4 at BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2023.
On top of that, Imperial have invited felps and HEN1 to join the team. The team's rookies lost their debut match at the club. They were run over by Monte, who won at Nuke 16-9. Next it was no better and as a result Cologne Brazilians took the top 20.
Later, they finished top-28 at ESL Pro League Season 18 and tried to make a name for themselves at other tournaments. They played at local championships like CBCS 2023 Season 1, Copa BetBoom, Game Arena and so on, but failed to achieve success there. Imperial looked better in the 2024 season.
So far, the main achievement of the year was winning the home PGL Major Copenhagen 2024: American RMR and making it to the Major itself. There, the team went 3-2 in the Opening Stage and then won the Legends Stage 1-3, which is pretty good.
They opened ESL Pro League Season 19 with a match against FaZe Clan, where they lost 0-2, but showed their teeth. In the middle set of ESL Pro League Season 19 Imperial played against Eternal Fire, where Ledgeila with a score of 1-2. Next was a loss by sAw and a flight to the top 32.
Later Imperial won 2 "small" tournaments like Thunderpick World Championship 2024: South American Series #1 and ESL Challenger League Season 47: South America.
They got to IEM Cologne 2024 thanks to the top 2 at Intel Extreme Masters Rio 2024: South American Qualifier. In the end, they finished in the top 24, but failed to make a miracle.
ESL Pro League Season 20 started with a 2-1 win over BIG in a very even match. Then they defeated MOUZ 2-0 and lost to M80, but made it to the second round of play-offs. However, they could not move further and finished in the top-12. They made their mark at IEM Rio 2024, but only made their mark: TOP-16.
In the group Thunderpick World Championship 2024 Imperial first Ledge and NiP (1-2), and then won against Legacy with a score of 2-1. As a result, Imperial managed to comeback in the group and enter the play-offs from the second place, where they lost to MongolZ in the first round and fell out of the tournament to TOP-8.
At PW Shanghai Major 2024 Imperial made it to the PW Shanghai Major at the last attempt: top-6 at American RMR with a score of 3-2. Directly PW Shanghai Major 2024: Opening Stage Imperial Long started with a defeat by paiN Gaming. Then there were similar matches against FURIA and Complexity and a final top-24 finish.
In the 2025 season Imperial played mostly at TIR-B tournaments, including CCT Season 2 South American Series #6, where they finished TOP-2, and TOP-4 at the Intel Extreme Masters Dallas 2025: SA Qualifier.
Prior to the BLAST Open Lisbon 2025, Imperial attended CCT Season 2 South American Series #7, where they earned their first (albeit small) win.
At the BLAST Open Lisbon 2025, Long Sogpegged finished in Group B with a loss to G2 Esports.
Mapple Imperial
The best maps of Imperial are Ancient and Inferno. The former has 3 wins in 4 maps and the latter has 5 wins out of 7.
Don't mind playing Overpass either, where Brazilians have 57% wins in 7 maps. Can also play Nuke with Vertigo, where they have 50% wins at 6 and 4 mapx respectively.
They don't play on Anubis.
History of head-to-head meetings between Liquid and Imperial
The teams previously played each other back in 2022.
Predicted result of Imperial vs Liquid at BLAST Lisbon 2025
In this match I expect Liquid to win. But not a clean win, because they are far from their optimal form, while Imperial can catch on.
Bottom line: 2-1 win for Liquid.
