Team Liquid has recently risen high in the world of CS:GO. They have successfully taken over the long-lasting era from Astralis. Team Liquid looks all fired up to take this August's Berlin Major 2019. Let's take a look at why every era has ended.
What is happening in CS:GO recently?
Astralis' downfall
Astralis was once invincible with their one-year era since April 2018. The Danes have been dominant for one whole year every tournament they played. Astralis sit comfortably at the top for this whole time without even worrying about any real contenders. However, things took a drastic change this year.
The Danish powerhouse was no longer invincible on Nuke after getting a surprising upset by ENCE in BLAST Pro Series Madrid. That ended their 31-map-long streak on Nuke in LAN against most top 15 teams. After that, Astralis took a questionable break to wind down after such a long time on top. This was where it all began.
Team Liquid, on the contrary, was quite active during that time. They went on to win 2 S-tier tournaments to accumulate enough points to dethrone Astralis on the HLTV ranking system. Astralis' era ended in the worst possible way. They were robbed of their throne just by going inactive for quite a long time.
NiP magic - Ninjas in Pyjamas
NiP in the early stage of CS:GO in 2013 and 2014 was considered the best in the server. They managed to go on an epic 87-0 streak until broken by Virtus.pro. With the NiP magic is no longer invulnerable, everything seems to pave the way for newcomers to challenge the crowned king.
One factor that might have contributed to the downfall of the Swedes was their own decision to accept a documentary film about themselves at the time. With that, a crew followed them around the Jönköping event.
Being filmed while at the top of your career was surely a privilege one could not simply deny. However, being on top of the world would bring you high enough to deliver a shock once you fall. That was what happened to the NiP magic.
After some major losses to fnatic where they were heavily favorited by fans, they got demotivated. What was left was only a legendary name. Eventually, their players left, only GeT_RiGhT and f0rest stayed. NiP then struggled to cling on to the top level of CS:GO but never quite reached the height they used to do.
The era taken over by Swedes compatriots - fnatic
fnatic’s era is another story. Their time under Markus 'pronax' Wallsten's leadership was successful with 3 major titles. However, their reign in the CS:GO scene was not dominant as their compatriots, it was closely challenged by French teams and Virtus.pro and NiP. It would be more like fnatic was favorite most of the time over those teams.
pronax parted ways with the team in November 2015. He would later create GODSENT in April 2017 with many old team members leaving fnatic to join with the old leader. But the project turned out unsuccessful as they could not just hold on to their prime days.
fnatic’s team member reunited in Fnatic in February 2017 and experienced various roster change. The team then struggled to find good results as they were outpaced and outgrown by other up and coming teams.
They could not renovate themselves and find new stuff to apply in the game, while others were doing really well. This was marked by the rise of the Brazilians SK Gaming in 2016 and the NiKo powered superteam FaZe Clan in 2017.
Rise of the Brazillian - SK Gaming
SK Gaming delivered new stuff to the world of CS:GO: discipline coupled with shining individual performance. The rise of SK Gaming marked the end of fnatic era, also shaping the era of their own.
The Brazillian took the world by the storm with their discipline CT-side and inventive T-side strategies. They would go on to dominate the scene in 2016 and 2017 where they won two back-to-back Majors with coldzera the two times Major MVP. They continued to win countless big tournaments in their era.
However, their era ended in the worst way possible. After some disappointing results in early 2018 where they constantly lost to the ever-rising Cloud9, the organization decided to make a move. They acquired two up and coming talent Jake "Stewie2K" Yip and Tarik 'tarik' Celik with a hope to build an all-star roster to come back to the scene.
Ever since then, the team struggled to stay on the top level of CS but failed horribly to the dominant Astralis. They even fell down under the power of other rising teams like Liquid, Natus Vincere. Yet again, with disappointing results, they decided to go full Brazillian again in late 2018, but that could not bring back their glorious days.
Power of the Danes - Astralis
Astralis has been on the rise since April of 2018. They followed the idea of SK Gaming, playing disciplined CS, but with more firepower. Every team member was a great talent with high fragging potential. They even introduced one factor outside of the game, health and mental care.
Also, all team members knew each other well outside of the game. They formed a close-knit family with great communication and synergy. That was the ultimate power that the Danes utilized well under their own era.
They went on to dominate the scene in the latter half of 2018 and managed to maintain their performance until the IEM Katowice Major. They won almost every big tournament at that time, managing to defeat everyone on a regular basis.
Most successful team ever
With successive victories over a large span of time, Astralis was the first to ever win Intel Grand Slam with $1,000,000 to their bank accounts. The closest team to ever reach their achievement is FaZe Clan with 3 out of 10 victories in Grand Slam Season 1.
However, things are looking not well for Astralis. Currently, they were robbed of their throne by Team Liquid. They lost their crown due to inactivity over a large span of time while their rival got a busy schedule instead.
That was not the sole reason why the era of Astralis is falling apart. They decided to skip big tournaments where they deemed unnecessary and went for BLAST Pro Series events. The tournaments are full of Bo1 matches, one of the worst ways to determine the performance of every team.
A rough ride
They crashed out of BLAST Pro Series Miami, finishing 4th. Astralis later lost to ENCE in a Bo3, even in their best map pick, Nuke. The untouchable king has fallen, as they say. Their own era of Nuke was ended brutally by the Finns.
That was not the end of the story. After 1 month of inactivity, they came back to one tournament with only MIBR and Vitality worthy of their opponent. Yet, the Danes seemed to lost the gasp of CS:GO when they lost to FURIA, one rising Brazillian team which was at the time outside of the top 10 in the ranking. Crashing out of one tournament where they were the heavy favorite to win, Astralis got down in ranking pretty fast.
In short, their own era would most likely follow the path of their forerunners. If the situation goes on like this and Astralis can’t come up with any solution, they will end up like other giants of CS:GO. Nothing will be left except the memory of “the good old days”.
The rising North Americans - Team Liquid
Team Liquid has been on the top-level competition since 2018. However, they were suspended right on the track under the heavy reign of Astralis. Only until they started winning tournaments did they regain the confidence against the Danish giant. After the downfall of Astralis, Team Liquid has displayed dominant performance against the rest of the world.
Team Liquid has been #1 for quite a while since their rise, 9 weeks to be exact. They are currently truly the best in the world by crushing everyone, most notably in a Bo5. The lastest tournament is IEM Chicago 2019 where Team Liquid overwhelmed ENCE with a 3-0 victory. After that, most big teams took a break of around one month before the Berlin Major.
However, the real question is whether Team Liquid can carry on their peak performance in the upcoming Berlin Major 2019 this late August. Majors are where most upsets take place as most teams would hide their secret strategies until this very tournament. Most eras include one Major victory for each team. If Team Liquid wants to extend their era, This Berlin Major is a must-win tournament.
Berlin Major 2019 is just around the corner. Will Team Liquid bring another Major to North America to solidify their era? Stay tuned for one of the most expected events in CS:GO each year.