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We continue to follow the action at ESL Pro League Season 20. The group stage is heating up at the big Maltese championship.
In general, the group stage of ESL Pro League Season 20 is an amazing thing, because there are 3 grids at once, but we'll talk about that later. It's about Team Liquid and ENCE, who will face each other in the ESL Pro League Season 20.
We are trying to figure out who will be stronger in the Liquid - ENCE match and will go to the next round of the top grid of Group D, and who will have to fall a little lower.
Let's go.
Team Liquid's uniform
We open the breakdown of the Liquid vs ENCE match with an analysis of Liquid's form. In this match, the North American club will play the number one with odds to win at around 1.2.
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, Twistzz.
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 lost 1-2 and as a result finished in the top 8.
Team Liquid map
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 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.
ENCE Form.
Let's continue the analysis of the match ENCE vs Liquid with the analysis of ENCE's form. In this match they play as the number two with odds to win around 3.
Last season, the team took TOP-3 at CCT Central Europe Malta Vibes, TOP-4 at ESL Pro League Season 17, and also reached TOP-8 European RMR B - qualifying event for BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023. ENCE also played at the Major, but it was TOP-14, which is hardly a worthy result.
IEM Dallas 2023 turned out to be much more pleasant. ENCE looked quite cheerful throughout the event, which allowed them to defeat MOUZ in the grand finals with a score of 2-0. Just before IEM Cologne 2023 ESL Challenger Katowice was played, where in the grand final they had to defeat Vp 1-2.
- ENCE roster: sdy, gla1ve, Goofy, Kylar, podi.
ENCE play in a stable roster for almost half a year. SunPayus and NertZ headline the roster with a KDA of 1.12.
Thanks to their victory at IEM Dallas 2023 ENCE started Cologne from the group stage. The first opponent was the Poles from 9INE, who gave the Finns serious problems, but lost with a score of 1-2 and a series of dops on the decisive map.
The next match was a match against Fnatic. ENCE won both maps, leaving Fnatic no special chances.
In the match for the Grand Final ENCE played against Heroic. Being an outsider, the Finns took a very good approach to the match and shut down the top 1 team in the world with a score of 2-1 in a tough Bo3.
Next up was a match against Vitality and as a result a passage to the Grand Final of IEM Cologne 2023. ENCE was not enough for the title, G2 Esports were stronger.
After an offensive Cologne 2023 ENCE started Gamers8 on a high note. They defeated Liquid 2-0 in the first match of the tournament.
In the semi-final match they played against Cloud9. Again, the Finns closed the series with a score of 2-0, leaving little chance for the Americans.
Later ENCE beat Heroic again, and dry, and in the grand final Gamers8 faced Vitality. Again, ENCE failed to take the title, Ledgeiv with a 1-2 score.
At the ESL Pro League Season 18 Long Round of the ESL Pro League, ENCE faced off against Evil Geniuses. The North American club even gave a fight, but only on the second map (14-16 Nuke), but still lost.
ENCE faced MIBR in the match to reach the final of the top grid of Group B at ESL Pro League Season 18. The new generation of the legendary Brazilian tag showed beautiful CSGO, and it was enough for one map.
Before the play-offs ENCE defeated BIG in a match to advance to the quarter-finals. The game ended 2-1, and ENCE were the winner of their group.
In the quarter-finals ENCE played against Movistar Riders. As expected, the Spaniards couldn't offer any proper resistance and were swept on two maps (16-2 Overpass and 16-5 Anubis).
ENCE's journey to ESL Pro League Season 18 ended at the semi-final stage. The Finns Ledge and future tournament champions MOUZ lost 1-2.
They played at BLAST Premier: Fall Showdown, which they failed. At the tournament the Finns finished top 4, which is hardly a serious result considering the level of the championship and the teams that played there.
ENCE also played at IEM Sydney 2023 - the first major tournament in CS2. There they managed to reach the play-offs of the championship, but in the first match of the main stage Ledge and FaZe Clan, who later became the champions of the tournament.
Later was CS Asia Championship 2023, where ENCE made it to the top 4. ENCE's record also includes Top 4 at Elisa Masters Espoo 2023 and Top 8 at BLAST Premier: World Final 2023. In 2024 they unsuccessfully tried to qualify for IEM Chengdu 2024, but failed in the qualifiers, falling out at the TOP-33/64 stage.
IEM Katowice 2024 ENCE started with an upset loss to BIG, but had a series of error-free matches: they defeated Astralis, MongolZ, Vitality (!) and G2 Esports (!), thus qualifying for the play-offs. They fell one game short of the quarter-finals of IEM Katowice 2024 against MOUZ.
Then we played at PGL Major Copenhagen 2024: European RMR B, where we finished in the top 8, which, however, was enough to qualify for the main tournament. Before the performance at the Major, we attended the qualifiers for Dallas 2024, where we failed - TOP-8.
Very difficult is the game at the PGL CS2 Copenhagen Major 2024, where Ence has 1 win with 2 defeats. And as a result, 2 defeats smoothly turned into 3 and, as a result, the departure from PGL CS2 Copenhagen Major 2024.
After the failure at the first CS2 World Championship ENCE played at Skyesports Masters 2024, where Ledge beat OG and took the top 8.
They started ESL Pro League Season 19 with a 0-2 defeat to GL. And they lost with absolutely no chance. Then ENCE met Bad News Kangaroos and there they were on the verge of failure, but managed to close the series with a score of 2-1 in their favour. Next up was a solid win against Monte, but then a loss to GamerLegion and a trip to the bottom of the grid. Later a loss to FURIA and a top-28 finish.
Among other things, ENCE attended CCT Season 1 Global Finals, where they finished in the top-8, as well as YaLLa Compass 2024, where they finished in the top-10.
ENCE Mapple
ENCE has two 100 per cent maps. They are Nuke, who has already played at IEM Cologne 2023 with 9 wins in 9 matches, and Anubis with 5 matches and 0 losses.
Still playing Ancient (66% wins in 3 matches). Still playing Mirage (9 matches, 4 wins). Vertigo - 2 wins and 3 losses and Overpass (2 wins in 7 matches).
History of head-to-head meetings between ENCE and Liquid
In the season 2024 the teams played each other 1 time at CCT Global Finals and Liquid won that time.
Predicted result of the match ENCE - Liquid at ESL Pro League Season 20
In this match my bet is on Liquid. ENCE are still going through a period of "acclimatisation" after the recent re-startup in the roster and against their background Liquid look more focused and have already shown a very good game against top teams.
Bottom line: Liquid win.
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