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We're going on Christmas vacation, but before we do so, we want to give away some cool CS:GO merch to the best readers in the world. Read on to participate <3.
2020 wasn't so weird after all
You know how like, 2020 has been really weird, and all of the good teams are now bad, and all of those onliner teams like BIG and Heroic are really good now, and NA CS is dead because of their lack of ability VALORANT?
Yeah, forget all that.
The only one of those 'onliner' teams who even did well at IEM was BIG, and they got ran through by Liquid, an NA team. Well, EliGE mostly, who went absolutely ballistic - dropping 61 over two maps. The rest of the 2020 top four crew were nowhere to be found in the semi-finals.
As is tradition, s1mple fell just short of beating Astralis in the semi-finals, and he, electronic and now B1T got to experience being slightly let down by their teammates. As is also tradition, Astralis met Liquid in the Grand Final.
We don't need to tell you what happened.
Liquid got absolutely blasted by Astralis. Like, again. It's the most one-sided rivalry since Espanyol had the nerve to be based in the same city as FC Barcelona.
It's like when your older brother offers to play games with you, but he gives you that crappy off-brand controller that has a button that says 'SPEED' on it that you swear doesn't do anything. It's just not fair.
It's like when the teacher picks the teams during PE and the other team weirdly has the two guys who play for the county/state team and you have the fat guy.
And that's one joke for every map Astralis had to play before they slapped Liquid back out of the server.
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A Twistzz in the tale
Source: Starladder / Igor Bezborodov
You've just got to your first final in a long time, and showed signs that you might be coming back to your best. Alright, you didn't beat Astralis in a Grand Final, but who does any more? What's the next step?
Bootcamp, and take stock of where you're at, and maybe improve? Maybe it's using Christmas to grind the game out?
If your answer was instead 'cut a player and bring in FalleN', then thanks for reading this, Team Liquid staff. Welcome!
That's right, just minutes after Liquid - well, we don't want to say 'embarrassed themselves' now that we know TL staff are reading the newsletter, but they did get absolutely railed by Astralis - Rush B Media dropped a bomb.
This was immediately backed up by the player himself on broadcast, and it really seems like Twistzz is gone, with FalleN his replacement. Now we love FalleN - he's one of the true greats - but this is a risk, and one we cannot wait to observe from afar.
It does give Liquid a genuine AWPer and an IGL, something they haven't had for a while. But MIBR were far from a great team by the end of FalleN's reign - and whether he can recapture that form is completely up in the air.
Do you want to win?
Christmas is the season of giving, and we want to give back to you, the best readers in the world.
All you have do, is reply to this email and tell us what the best part of TLDR is, and you will enter a random draw to win a CS:GO aluminum keycap and some cool stickers.
We want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Just like the rest of the CS community, we'll take a well deserved vacation before we're back on the 15th of January 2021 to preview the Blast Premier 2020 Global Finals.
We will be sending out a few special editions over the next weeks, to let you know how the TLDR is doing, what our plans are for the future and not least, let you know who is on aizyesque's list of 2020 ballers.
Breaking news: ALEX is French after all
- In what's hopefully the only thing he's inherited from the French, the Cloud9 IGL has expressed his support for the player strike that took place ahead of the Blast Finals.
- Almost exactly two months after Jkaem joined the team, he's out of Apeks again as another offer came up on the table. He must've learned these roster shenanigans in NA...
- They know me for my one-taps!
- Australian player asap has received a one year ban for using a fake ID to circumvent an age restriction at a tournament. Guess you can't change your age ASAP, asap.
- DreamHack Open January has had its dates offcially announced. God that feels weird, it having a month instead of a place as a name... We need LAN's back.
- If only all our wingman games were this easy...
- Elisa Nordic will expand into 2021 with their regional tournaments, announcing $ 100,000 in prizepool divided over Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Great, the last thing we need is more nordic talents...
- Saved by the... grenade?
- Speaking of the French, Vive ZywOo and Vive la France! Vitality extended ZywOo's contract until 2024 and celebrated with animated posters, projected onto buildings in Paris:
