What to expect from Liquid vs. ENCE
Team Liquid's run in ESL Pro League Season 20 begins with a first round matchup versus the international roster of ENCE. Both teams shared the same group in the last season of Pro League, but while ENCE failed to make it out of their group, Liquid reached the quarterfinals of playoffs before falling to Astralis.
Both teams have made significant roster changes since April though, with Liquid adding Justin "jks" Savage and Roland "ultimate" Tomkowiak, and ENCE adding Viktor "sdy" Orudzhev and Paavo "podi" Heiskanen.
Liquid courage
Since adding jks and ultimate, Liquid have been in excellent form overall, running through Virtus.pro and beating NAVI twice during a very successful run at BLAST Fall Groups. They've also made handy work of their domestic rivals in Complexity, FURIA, paiN, and Legacy.
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Trio of NAF, Twistzz, and ultimate firing on all cylinders
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Have won 10 of their last 13 series
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Lots of map pool depth
Have patiENCE
ENCE has been in a bit of a rut recently. They fell short of reaching the Perfect World Shanghai Major European RMR after an 0-2 start in the closed qualifier, while also missing out on the IEM Rio closed qualifier. To rub more dirt in their wounds, they lost to a lower ranked Young Ninjas in the very first round of the Thunderpick World Championship EU series, despite taking the first map in that series.
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It can't get worse, right?
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sdy has been consistently good
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gla1ve is still an IGL you can't sleep on
Previous Matchups
Liquid defeated ENCE 2-0 in the first round of playoffs at the CCT Global Finals this past May, though that was before both teams made roster moves.
Likely Vetoes
These map veto predictions are speculative, but are based on the assumption that Liquid will opt to veto second.
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ENCE remove Inferno (Permaban)
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Liquid remove Vertigo (Permaban)
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ENCE picks Dust2 (Liquid are 0-2 in last three months)
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Liquid picks Anubis (5-1 in last six matches, ENCE are 1-2)
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ENCE bans Ancient (Liquid are 5-0 in last five matches)
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Liquid removes Nuke (frequent second ban)
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Mirage is left over
Liquid's map pool is very strong right now, and ENCE has really been struggling. Liquid should win this series with the way they've been playing, though ENCE might give them some trouble on Dust2 if that's the way the veto goes.
LiquidENCE| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Roland 'ultimate' Tomkowiak |
47 - 25 | +22 | 106.5 | 81.8% | 1.65 |
 Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken |
37 - 21 | +16 | 77.2 | 90.9% | 1.37 |
 Justin 'jks' Savage |
33 - 27 | +6 | 86.9 | 79.5% | 1.20 |
| Keith 'NAF' Markovic |
25 - 25 | +0 | 66.3 | 70.5% | 0.97 |
 Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis |
28 - 34 | -6 | 77.0 | 59.1% | 0.88 |
| ENCE |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Paavo 'podi' Heiskanen |
32 - 35 | -3 | 80.0 | 63.6% | 1.06 |
| Kacper 'Kylar' Walukiewicz |
29 - 32 | -3 | 71.4 | 61.4% | 0.97 |
 Viktor 'sdy' Orudzhev |
25 - 33 | -8 | 77.9 | 70.5% | 0.89 |
| Krzysztof 'Goofy' Górski |
23 - 34 | -11 | 52.8 | 61.4% | 0.70 |
 Lukas 'gla1ve' Rossander |
22 - 36 | -14 | 57.2 | 59.1% | 0.69 |
