Welcome to EGamersWOrld.
We continue to review what's happening at BLAST Bounty Season 1. There are 16 teams left in the race for the play-offs out of 32 teams invited to the tournament on Long Sogpeg.
Among the contenders to advance to the LAN finals are Heroic and Liquid, among others. The winner of this pairing will advance to the LAN Finals.
Let's find out who of the pair Liquid - Heroic will be stronger and pass to the LAN-finals of BLAST Bounty Season 1.
Let's go.
Heroic's uniform
Let's open the Heroic vs Liquid match with an analysis of Heroic's form. In this match they will play as favourites with odds to win at around 1.4.
Heroic have looked very good in the 2023 season. They played consistently in TIR-S tournaments and were a significant force.
Heroic had a streak of great tournaments. It was top 2 at IEM Rio 2023, top 4 BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 and IEM Dallas 2023. Heroic went on to win the BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2023 and also finished in the top 3 of the BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2023
- Heroic roster: SunPayus, LNZ, yxngstxr, xfl0ud, tN1R.
Before their performance at Gamers8 Heroic attended another prestigious tournament - IEM Cologne. Being one of the main contenders to win the German tournament, the Danes made it to the play-offs of the competition, but there they couldn't move further than the first round. Heroic lost to Astralis in the first round of the IEM Cologne play-offs with a score of 0-2.
At Gamers8 they debuted with a match against Falcons. In general, the game ended predictably, but the French gave a fight, especially on the first map (Mirage 22-18 in favour of Heroic). The second one went to Heroic with the score 16-10.
In the previous match Heroic met GamerLegion. Despite GL's seemingly idle position in that match, they were able to grind the nerves of the Danes and take the map, but still lost in the end.
Heroic finished off Gamers8 with a match against ENCE. The Danish club again failed to beat the Finns and left the major championship at the top-4 stage.
In the first match at ESL Pro League Season 18, the team played against Rooster. The Australians offered no resistance and took 6 rounds in two games.
Next was BIG - another passable opponent for Heroic, but it was not to be. The Danes lost 0-2, losing on Ancient with a score of 23-25 and on Inferno with a score of 13-16.
Heroic got into the last chance net after a 0-2 loss at MOUZ. So from the "achievements" so far, a win over the raw Roosters and that's it. It looks very deplorable. And it ended no better: Heroic Ledge and Monte crashed out of ESL Pro League Season 18.
Next up was Roobet Cup 2023, where Heroic finished in the top 12. After unsatisfactory performance at EPL and Roobet Cup Heroic played not better at Thunderpick World Championship 2023 and BLAST Premier: Fall Final 2023. There, it was top-8 and top-6 respectively.
Heroic face many challenges in the 2024 season. They still attend top tournaments, but the performance is much worse: Top-16 at BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2024, Top-8 at IEM Chengdu 2024, Top-28 at ESL Pro League Season 9, Top-6 at IEM Dallas 2024 and Top-8 at YaLLa Compass 2024.
Later, the series of appearances at various championships continued, with Heroic playing at both BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024 (Top 12) and IEM Cologne 2024 (Top 20) and BLAST Premier: Fall Showdown 2024 (Top 16). In October 2024 Heroic were close to finally taking the championship title, reaching the final of Elisa Masters Espoo 2024, but Ledgeili ENCE in the grand final.
Before appearing at European RMR B, Heroic played at Thunderpick World Championship 2024, where they finished top 2, losing to MongolZ in the grand final.
At European RMR B, Heroic Long Sogpeg started with a win against PARIVISION. Next was a loss to BIG, followed by a win against NiP. At PW Shanghai Major 2024 they qualified thanks to a win over Passion UA.
Going straight into the Elimination Stage, Heroic beat BIG and FaZe on their way to the basket 2-0. In the match to advance to the play-offs Heroic Ledge or MongolZ. In the play-offs match Ledge and Spirit. However, they managed to pass to the main stage after defeating the reigning world champions NaVi. However, in the first match of the play-offs Heroic got in the way of G2, who knocked Heroic out of the race for the championship.
In the opening match of BLAST Bounty Season 1 Heroic played against 3DMax, where they outplayed 3DMax 2-1.
Heroic's mappool
Heroic's best map is Nuke. There the Danes have 5 wins and 0 losses.
They like to play Overpass, where they lost only once. In three months on Overpass - 5-1.
One of the most frequently played and yet successful maps is Inferno. Heroic has a 9-3 statistic here. It's also going well on Ancient, where Heroic is 3-1 on matchups.
Liquid's form
We continue our analysis of the Liquid vs Heroic match with an analysis of Liquid's form. In this match, they will play catch-up status with odds to win at around 3.
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 ranking, BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2023 with a top-9 ranking, and IEM Master Cologne with a top-12 ranking.
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, jks, ultimate, NertZ.
A string of failures at major championships has caused major roster changes. Such that Liquid in 2024 can be called "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 it was not successful: in the final of the qualifiers Ledge and M80.
Liquid took TOP-8 at BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2024, and then passed at IEM Dallas 2024, did not pass at PGL Copenhagen Major 2024, taking TOP-8 at home, and then TOP-16 at BLAST Premier: Spring Showdown 2024 and TOP-6 at IEM Masters and TOP-6 Chengdu 2024. They also played at ESL Pro League Season 19, where they finished Top-8.
IEM Dallas 2024 Liquid started with a victory over CoL, but then - a completely unexpected defeat by 9z Team in the match for the play-offs. As a result, at IEM Dallas 2024 Liquid finished in the top 9-12 without making the play-offs.
Liquid attended BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024, where they surprised everyone. At BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024, Liquid finished in the top 1-4, winning their group, thus securing a slot at BLAST Premier: World Final.
Liquid Long Sogpeg IEM Cologne 2024 from the Play-In stage, where they played twice against Brazilian representatives: paiN and FURIA and won both times to advance to the group stage. At the Long Stage of the group stage IEM Cologne 2024 played against FaZe, where Ledgeili 0-2. After falling to the bottom of the group stage, Liquid made it to the small final, where they again played against FaZe and in a very dramatic match they lost 1-2 and as a result finished in the top 8.
ESL Pro League Season 20 Team Liquid started with a performance in Group D, where they beat ENCE and Vp 2-0, and lost to Vitality 1-2 in the play-offs seeding match. Starting the main stage of the ESL Pro League Season 20 play-offs with a match against CoL, Liquid beat the American club 2-0 without a chance. But then they faced G2 and as a result of the meeting they left ESL Pro League S20.
Next, Liquid played at BLAST Premier: Fall Final 2024, where they finished in the top 6 and at IEM Rio 2024, where they finished in the top 12. The final tournament for Liquid in the 2024 season was Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024, where Liquid managed to qualify for the play-offs, but lost to future champions Spirit in the first round of the main stage.
They started at BLAST Bounty Season 1 with a clean win over 9 Pandas.
Team Liquid Mappool
Team Liquid's top 1 map for 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.
History of head-to-head meetings between Liquid and Heroic
The teams have played each other only 1 time in the 2024 season. Then, at IEM China 2024, it was Liquid who got the victory.
Predicted result of Heroic vs Liquid at BLAST Bounty Season 1
In my opinion, this will be one of the most The International Heresy matches of this stage of BLAST Bounty Season 1. Both teams showed very good play in the first round of the tournament and I'm sure they will show it here. That's why I see a +2.5 total as the most obvious result.
Bottom line: total +2.5.
