What to expect from Liquid versus G2

Liquid shocked the world during the previous player break shuffle with the decision to move away from a North American core just under a month ago, the first time since arriving on the scene in 2015. With the rest of the transfer window to prepare, the time for Liquid’s EU debut has come.

Their first game by no means will be a walk in the park, for they’ll be met with the challenge of the No. 4 HLTV ranked G2, one of many titans in the BLAST Premier Fall Groups. The task looks tough for the debuting roster to face a top-five team, but they’ll look to prove themselves as a world-beater on day one against G2.

It starts with NAF

The news cycle went crazy at the tail end of the transfer window over the transfer of Liquid’s day-one star Jonathan “EliGE” Jablanowski, but Liquid still have their familiar face in Keith “NAF” Markovic, a star player in his own right. With EliGE now removed from the lineup, NAF will have an opportunity to show himself as a dominant talent in the server even beyond what we’ve seen in the best iterations of Liquid’s past. But before any form of the team’s potential has taken shape, it is important to see NAF perform at least at the level we are seeing already or the team could have problems.

• NAF has been getting better throughout the year, peaking at the Major with a 1.24 rating.

• His performance in this team will be the contingency for their success.

Trust what you know

There are a lot of questions surrounding Liquid and they likely won’t be answered in their entirety after just three-ish weeks of being together. There are many developments to come regarding how the best version of the lineup looks, but there is enough familiarity with the core that they can lean into while developing the final product. Combining the core’s familiarity on maps like Inferno, Anubis, and Mirage with the raw talent of the new signings, there is enough there to make it a war against G2.

• The previous Liquid lineup was near-dominant on Mirage, closing with a 22-6 record.

• The core has a 60+% win rate on Inferno, a map often deciding series at the top level.

Previous matchups

This will be the first match between these two lineups, but the Liquid core and G2 met once prior this year at IEM Katowice back in February. NAF played particularly poor this series, ending -13 in K/D difference with a .74 rating, as G2 took the series 2-0.

Likely vetoes

It is anybody’s guess what direction Liquid opts to go for moving forward with their map pool after acquiring a European core. With the only thing to point to is historical data of the Liquid core, a potential veto could be:

• Liquid ban Vertigo

• G2 ban Overpass

• Liquid pick Mirage

• G2 pick Inferno

• Liquid ban Nuke

• G2 ban Anubis

• Decider is Ancient

The series is set to start the day off bright and early at 06:00AM.