What to expect from Liquid v. Eternal Fire CCT S1 Grand Finals

Men have climbed Everest. Men have walked on the dusty surface of the moon. We have unlocked the secrets of atoms to create nuclear fission. Yet, all those results dwarf in comparison to what happened yesterday. Yesterday, dear reader, Team Liquid faced off against old rivals Astralis and won.

You heard that right, Liquid, dizzy and stumbling from the past year of roster changes, took down Nicolai "device" Reedtz in an honest to goodness best-of-three series. Now remains only one match to walk away with the 250k grand prize, even more than first place at EPL. Before we get ahead of ourselves, though, Liquid need to take down the Turkish superteam of Eternal Fire.

Liquid on fire (isn't that just gas?)

I cannot overstate how much of a godsend Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken has been this event. Of course, it's usually him and fellow Canadian Keith "NAF" Markovic at the top of the leaderboard, but without Twistzz' superb 40-bomb on Inferno against Astralis, I wouldn't be writing this article. Casper "cadiaN" Møller has also been great, statistically speaking. The calls have been on point, but so has his scope.

• Twistzz is the highest rated player of the event with a 1.34 rating

• cadiaN has been solid with a 1.14 rating himself

• Mareks "YEKINDAR" Gaļinskis has been struggling with a 42% opening duel win-rate

Eternal Fire, also on fire, but Eternally I guess

Directly opposite Twistzz this match, Ismailcan "XANTARES" Dörtkardeş has been a force to be reckoned with, nipping at the heels of Twistzz' rating. XANTARES does have some help though in the form of Turkish young gun Ali "Wicadia" Haydar Yalçın, number three on the event's rating list. To be completely honest, Eternal Fire's opponents haven't been the strongest, but neither were Liquid's until they went up against Astralis. All you can do is face whoever is in front of you, and in that metric, Eternal Fire are undefeated.

• XANTARES and Wicadia have a 1.33 and 1.29 rating, respectively, combining for nearly 50% of the team's opening duels

• Looked weak against BetBoom's Mirage, potentially an exploitable factor?

Previous Matchups

These two teams have not faced off before.

Likely Vetoes

Due to being a grand final, this will be a BO5, meaning every map other than both team's permabans will be played. In this case, pick order really does not affect that much until someone steals their opponent's pick.

• Eternal Fire ban Ancient

• Liquid ban Vertigo

• Eternal Fire pick Anubis

• Liquid pick Inferno

• Eternal Fire pick Dust2

• Liquid pick Mirage

• Decider Nuke