Liquid claimed their third trophy this year by winning Dreamhack Master Dalles by edging out ENCE in the 3 maps long final.
The North American powerhouse has carried on their convincing performance since their victory in IEM Sydney 2019. They managed to keep up their good form in big tournaments throughout the year till this much-needed victory to claim titles for the Americans. The game was exciting and hard-fought, but really well deserved for Twistzz and Co.
ENCE also put up a decent fight where they managed to win in one of their weakest maps, also the map pick from Liquid. The Finns also showed how good their Inferno is when the map went phenomenal with ENCE almost made it to overtime.
The veto was a little bad for Allu and Co. where they chose to pick Mirage, one of the best map for Liquid. They should have gone for Nuke, where they managed to upset the Astralis’ 31 LAN streak for Nuke and beat Liquid 16-14. Nevertheless, ENCE showed the world that they are not just a fluke Major runner. They managed to keep up good performance ever since their impressive run in IEM Katowice Major 2019. They showed that the Finns can truly become the top 3 teams in the world, even surpassing Natus Vincere.
That being said, the team with the most thing to worry about now is Astralis, who have gone inactive ever since their upset loss against ENCE in BLAST Pro Series Madrid. The Danes have more concern than anyone else regarding Liquid’s victory. Currently dominating the scene, Astralis has managed to stay #1 in the HLTV ranking for over 1 year. Now that they have decided to go inactive, maybe to prepare for the more important upcoming events, Astralis no longer gain more points in ranking, but they are losing them instead. Meanwhile, their North American counterpart got victories after victories and accumulated more points after each event, there is a high chance that Liquid will overtake Astralis’ #1 position as the best team in the world.
Ranking aside, Liquid and ENCE put up a good show for audience and fans around the world. They managed to go 3 maps and there were so many crucial clutches to keep viewers on the edge of their seats.
The series kicked off on Mirage, The Finns map pick. Although scoring the pistol round for themselves, ENCE got stunned by Liquid’s second round force buy. Things went chaotic as Liquid found themselves a big lead 7-2 only to see ENCE striking back with 5 concussive rounds and concluded the first half 8-7 in favor of Liquid. However, the second half went the way of Liquid as they put up a tight defense and closed the map with ENCE only claiming 1 round as T-side.
Coming to Overpass, one of the maps that Nitr0 feel the most comfortable for Liquid, a gloomy fate awaits the Finns as they only have 33% winrate on LAN of this map. However, sergej and allu put up a sensational performance to bring the map to overtime after being 7-13 down. ENCE did exceptionally well in overtime to bring the series to the 3rd map.
Things again looked confusing as people began to doubt if the 2nd place curse struck again. But Liquid said no, they came to the third map looking determined to claim their $100,000 as they went to a dominant run as T-side on Inferno, scoring a 10-1 lead. ENCE seemed to wake up and responded with 7 rounds in a row to bring the scoreline to 10-8. Things went shaky as both teams traded rounds and Liquid managed to close the series with the scoreline of 16-13.
Also, Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski has scooped his first MVP trophy in his entire career.
DreamHack Masters Dallas final standings:
- Liquid - $100,000
2. ENCE - $50,000
3-4. FaZe - $22,000
3-4. FURIA - $22,000
5-6. G2 - $10,000
5-6. Vitality - $10,000
7-8. North - $6,000
7-8. Renegades - $6,000
9-12. NiP - $4,000
9-12. NRG - $4,000
9-12. fnatic - $4,000
9-12. Windigo - $4,000
13-16. TYLOO - $3,000
13-16. Isurus - $3,000
13-16. Cloud9 - $3,000
13-16. Lucid Dream - $3,000