Welcome to EGamersWorld.
The International 2023 is in full swing as the tournament continues to battle it out in the group stage of the year's main tournament. We are still talking about Group B, where the second stream matches are being prepared for the tournament.
One of these matches is a clash between Team Liquid and Thunder Awaken. Not the most interesting match on paper, but definitely important from a tournament point of view.
Liquid are one step away from securing a top-2 spot in their group. A win over Thunder Awaken will be enough for that. The South American residents, on the other hand, need a win to keep their chances of further participation at TI 12 alive.
Let's see how this match will end. Will any of the teams manage to get a clean win and improve their performance in the standings, or will we see a draw.
Let's go.
Team Liquid's form
We open the match analysis with an analysis of Team Liquid's form. In this match, the team will play as favourites with a rather serious gap: the odds for a win are at 1.5, which is quite a serious figure as for Bo2.
Liquid didn't lose a single match at DPC 2023: WEU Division 1 Tour 1, and then took the top 2 at The Lima Major 2023 while playing with substitutes. More than decent.
The second round of the DPC was as similar to the previous round as possible. Liquid again took the Top 1, but now with only one loss in the table. On the international stage, Liquid shone again, but were still overshadowed by Gaimin Gladiators, who took their second Major a Champions Cup of the season.
In their third season, Liquid were no longer able to cement their supremacy. "Liquid" fell to fourth place, but it was good enough to pass at Bali Major 2023, which in the case of the past at The International 2023 Team Liquid does not play any role.
- Liquid lineup: miCKe, Nisha, zai, Boxi, Insania.
After the disappointing result at DreamLeague Season 20, where Team Liquid fell out of the first group stage, there was a feeling that Bali Major 2023 would be held for Liquid at the International 2023. However, Liquid decided to switch on and play to the fullest.
And they almost succeeded: they took the top 2, losing in the grand final to Gaimin Glaidators! Again. Third time at a Major tournament in a year.
Riyadh Masters 2023 Team Liquid started at the Play-In stage, as they surprisingly didn't collect enough ESL ranking points. They finished the Play-In with a 3-1-1 score and second place in Basket A, and then played the group stage with a 3-3-1 statistic, advancing to the top set of play-offs.
At the end of the biggest tournament of the year, Team Liquid finished in the top 2, which can't be called a bad result. Unlike the top-10 at DreamLeague Season 21, which was after the Riyadh Masters 2023 and before Longsong The International 2023.
Liquid rebounded soundly on the first day of play. The titular Europeans managed to outplay BB Team and Shopify Rebellion, as well as draw with Azure Ray.
Team Liquid's most popular heroes
Team Liquid has Crystal Maiden in the top picks with 7 games and 6 wins.
In addition to Crystal Maiden, Doom (4 matches, 100% wins), Sven (4 matches, 75% wins), and Skywrath Mage (4 matches, 75% wins) are the picks.
Rubick (4 matches, 25% wins), Void Spirit (3 matches, 100% wins) appear in spades, Underlord, Pangolier, Storm Spirit have 3 matches each and all have 2 wins.
Thunder Awaken Form
We continue the match analysis by analysing Thunder Awaken's form. In this match, they are playing the number two side with win odds around 11.
In the first season Thunder Awaken played worse than expected. Then the club took only 3 maps out of 7, which did not allow them to rise above the top 5.
However, in the case of Thunder Awaken this result is not bad. The team kept their place in the top division, which is already great.
Further, they improved their performance. In the second cycle of DPC 2023: SA Upper Division, Thunder Awaken climbed to the third line, Ledge only to the main competitors for the victory in general - beastcoast and Evil Geniuses. Basically, they are now close to repeating the result.
- Thunder Awaken roster: Knight, SLATEM$, ILICH, n1ght, Mjz.
In addition to the DPC ranking ecosystem, the team has played outside of its format, but local tournaments in the 1XPLORE LATAM series, where they won twice, but the main focus is still on the league.
At DPC 2023: SA Division 1 Tour 3 Thunder Awaken Thunder Awaken made it to the top 3, which, however, was not enough to advance to Bali Major 2023.
After the third round, DPC won 1XPLORE LATAM #4, EPL World Series: America Season 5, and Phygital Gamers 2023 Season 2.
Thunder Awaken had a tough time making it to The International 2023. Being the main favourites for home qualification, they unexpectedly fell to the bottom net, from where they had to comeback.
The first day of play at The International 2023 itself was a tough one. The Peruvians managed to squeeze the only card from Shopify Rebellion and now they are on the last place with the score 1-5, which almost guarantees their departure from the tournament.
The most popular Thunder Awaken heroes
The most frequent guest in Thunder Awaken picks is Crystal Maiden. The character has appeared 15 times, while having a winrate of 60%.
Besides CM honours Dawnbreaker (11 games, 81% win rate), Zeus (9 matches, 44% win rate), Marci (9 matches, 33% win rate), Nyx Assassin (8 matches, 62% win rate).
History of head-to-head meetings
This season the teams have not played each other in official matches.
Predicted result of Thunder Awaken vs Team Liquid at The International 2023
There are no objective reasons to believe in a Thunder victory on at least one map. Liquid look ready for The International 2023 and obviously won't miss the chance to earn some easy points in the match against TA.
Bottom line: a win for Liquid.