Team Liquid stunned the North American community with an incredible comeback in the playoffs to win another North American championship. The squad coming into the semi-finals against Cloud9 was evidently struggling, even being the only team to drop a game to a team from the LTA South with Cloud9, FlyQuest, and 100 Thieves taking care of business in 2-0 fashion. TL rallied back, however, putting together two impressive performances against C9 and 100T to reclaim their title as the best team in North America. After the series, bo3.gg had the opportunity to attend the Team Liquid post-series press conference. 

Addressing the LTA Format

The LTA format is a widely debated topic amongst the community that originally spawned once the realization for the fans kicked in that Disguised and LYON would both be eliminated after only four to five games, which isn’t even half of the games teams would normally play in a regular season, even if it was best-of-ones. TL was asked about this as the first question in the press conference. Head coach Spawn answered first, having more of an adrenaline-filled answer of not really caring because ‘we just won’. 

That being said, the Team Liquid head coach had very high praise for the atmosphere and the positive energy that the Brazilian crowd, teams, and staff brought to the Split 1 cross-conference playoffs. Due to how the format worked out, fans were only treated to four best-of-threes between North American and Brazilian squads. That being said, Spawn was thrilled with how his team was received from the moment they landed in Brazil. “It was amazing to come to Brazil to play in such an amazing audience and I’m sure it’s a memory that everyone on this stage will hold dear for the rest of their life.

Yeon’s hilarious glasses story

Yeon has been one of the best-performing players across both the North and South LTA conferences. Even when his team was not performing well, Yeon was the beacon of hope that carried his squad through the dark times and into the light. During the series, Yeon’s glasses had to be prepared as apparently after the Cloud9 series, they broke in hilarious, but understandable fashion if you’re a person who wears glasses. “After we played, I went to show, and then since I am blind I was looking for my glasses and then I sat down and heard a crunch and I was like ‘oh no’ [laughs]. 

Spawn: “Shout out to Furia”

The sentiment from most of the North American teams is that the LTA South teams are much better than the overall sentiment around the Brazilian and Latin America squads given the stage results in the first round of the playoffs. Most teams were very high on Isurus Estral, and for good reason, they pushed Team Liquid the hardest of any team from the South and had a good chance of taking them down in the first round. When asked about the overall strength of the teams, there was one surprising team that received a lot of praise from head coach Spawn. “ We scrimmed a lot of teams and some of them completely destroyed us, shoutout to Furia for giving me one of the most depressing days of this boot camp.” 

Praise for 100 Thieves

Against many people’s predictions, 100 Thieves made the LTA Split 1 finals, beating the other big three squads in Cloud9, Team Liquid, and most recently FlyQuest to make the first finals of the year. And while it was a 3-0, it was a split that 100 Thieves can take a lot of positives from and work on going into splits two and three. In the press conference, Yeon was high on praise for their final opponents. “ Even though it was a 3-0 I think 100 Thieves is always a good and solid team, especially on stage. And they honestly did well in the early game and they pushed us really hard. I’m excited to see how they do next time especially because I think they’re actually good.” 

Fans can now expect to see Team Liquid when they jet off to South Korea to compete in the first international event of the year, First Stand. So far only Team Liquid and the LCK’s Hanwha Life have booked their ticket, but three other teams will be waiting for them in Korea.