Team Liquid has been handed a lifeline that could redeem their season, as The MongolZ dropped out of BLAST Open London due to Visa issues. Despite losing in the qualifier to an academy team, Liquid have the chance to save their season.
Liquid have faced a worrisome start to the second season of the year, having shown no real signs of improvement under new IGL Kamil ‘siuhy’ Szkaradek in the first season either. Liquid were recently humiliatingly defeated by academy roster, VP Prodigy, at RES Showdown 2: BLAST Premier Rising.
The event served as a regional qualifier to BLAST Open London, with Danish roster Ecstatic eventually taking the spot and Liquid being eliminated in the very first round. However, Liquid now have a chance at redemption, not only for that loss but for their whole season as they receive the direct invite to the event following The MongolZ’s visa issues.
Team Liquid’s path to redemption
BLAST Open London begins on August 27 with the online stage. Six teams from that stage will qualify for the BLAST London Finals, the LAN event taking place at the Ovo Arena Wembley from September 5-7.
With rosters like Vitality, MOUZ, Spirit, NaVi, FaZe, and G2 at the event, Liquid will not be favoured on esports betting sites to make the LAN event.
If Liquid do manage to qualify for the $330,000 LAN Finals, they will have a chance at vastly changing their VRS fate heading into the Starladder Budapest 2025 Major invite cutoff. The roster simply has to deliver, yet there is little evidence that they can muster such a performance.
Liquid’s BLAST Bounty Season 2 campaign kicked off against Ecstatic with a map of Train that many have described as “NIP vs AMKAL 2”, an infamously bad series between two struggling rosters. The map of Train was full of blunders from both sides, leaving casters Harry ‘JustHarry’ Russell and Hugo ‘Hugo’ Bryon in tears from its farcical nature.
Liquid will have to look like a completely different beast when the time comes to play BLAST Open London or they face a mountain to make it to the major.
The MongolZ miss out
The Mongolian roster currently sits at world #4 in the VRS rankings, having made positive strides in the first half of the season that added to their already consistently strong level. The MongolZ made breakthroughs in the playoffs, especially the Blast.tv Austin Major, where they finished runners-up, defeating FaZe and paiN on the way to the Grand Final.
Despite a strong finish to last season, the Mongolian roster was eliminated by NaVi in the quarter-finals of IEM Cologne, following news from the team that they only had four days of practice prior to the event after recovering from the previous season.
Well, they’ll certainly have time to practice at the beginning of September when Liquid and Co. will be at BLAST Open London. They can do so knowing their position is relatively safe in the rankings. For The MongolZ, this season will not be about a scramble to qualify for the major, but about perfecting those little details to get them over the line and winning Tier 1 trophies.
Darragh Harbinson is an esports writer specialising in Counter-Strike. He has written for Esports News UK, Esports Insider, UKCSGO, Dexerto, and Rush B Media.
