So, we ask knowing the only possible answer, why exactly did Team Liquid decide to stick with this roster?

Falcons rocked up to Bounty without kyousuke and still had their pants down, with ultimate getting an absolute schooling from m0NESY, begging the question as to why he’s still there.

Yes, plenty of very good players have been mogged by m0NESY, but ultimate picked up just over half of his kills and was quite clearly way out of his depth, just as he has been every time he’s played against a top eight team. He’s just not ever going to make it, sadly.

It’s not just his fault - Liquid are a trainwreck, and maybe in another team he might not be quite so useless - but in this game he was exposed pretty heavily.

Falcons won in OT on map one but were largely unchallenged in map two, racking up a comfortable 2-0 without kyousuke playing, which is a terrifying indictment of Liquid’s hopes this season.

In the second semi-final, HEROIC smacked FURIA on map one (molodoy, bizarrely, went 13-8 in a 13-3 loss), got smacked back even harder (2-13) on map two, then nearly pulled off a crazy comeback on Nuke.

Mirage, map one, was yuurih’s worst map ever, and KSCERATO looked all at sea at times too. His failure to check top mid allowing xfl0ud a free triple was so unlike him that it was starting to concern us.

Fortunately, he was back to being KSCERATO in the next two, though it was molodoy who stole the show, again. Turns out his HLTV placing was wrong after all - he should have been higher. He bossed HEROIC around and saved FURIA’s bacon on Nuke, after a stellar performance in the 13-2 win.

The kid’s incredible, and a testament to what can be done when you prioritise the AWP while everyone else moves away from it.

HEROIC should be proud that they pushed FURIA here, and can take plenty into the new season especially when they get Alkaren back.

Quite telling that HEROIC with a stand-in looked 50x more promising than Liquid with their full roster, really.

Your opinions

In the latest edition, we asked you: Where would you like to see a Major held?

Here’s what you said:

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤪 Inside DaZeD’s mind (29%)
🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🇨🇳 Tiananmen Square (18%)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 👶 Epstein Island (6%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🇦🇺 Australia (objectively the worst option here, sry) (47%)

And yes, you have really disappointed us. Shame on you.