Liquid upset by Rare Atom biggest in team LAN history
Liquid's loss yesterday against Rare Atom was not just bad, but it looks like this was the worst loss Liquid has experienced on LAN in recent memory.
In examining several international LANs that Liquid has participated in, there were three other losses that stood out in the severity and ranking difference. While the HLTV Ranking is a great tool, sometimes it doesn't accurately capture the true skill of teams, especially so if they are newly formed. For that reason, we didn't consider the rankings of what we considered similarly powered teams.
4th Biggest Upset
The 4th largest loss that we found was actually when Liquid was the best in the world. In DreamHack Masters Malmo 2019, Liquid was facing off against Grayhound, then ranked the 28th best team in the world, giving a difference of 27 spots. In a lower-bracket semifinal, the Americans were coming off of their Intel Grand Slam winning triumph with a semifinals appearance at ESL One New York and a top 8 finish at the StarLadder Berlin Major.
At Malmo, Liquid seemed to stumble against OpTic, but recovered in the lower-bracket against North. However, against Grayhound it was completely different. The Australians were able to dispatch the Americans in a quick and easy 2-0 game that would eliminate Liquid from Malmo. Grayhound would move on to lose to MOUZ in the next round.
LiquidGrayhound| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Keith 'NAF' Markovic |
46 - 35 | +11 | 93.9 | 72.7% | 1.22 |
| Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken |
42 - 38 | +4 | 78.7 | 69.1% | 1.07 |
 Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski |
33 - 40 | -7 | 69.9 | 63.6% | 0.91 |
| Nick 'nitr0' Cannella |
30 - 39 | -9 | 69.7 | 56.4% | 0.86 |
| Jake 'Stewie2K' Yip |
32 - 43 | -11 | 72.7 | 58.2% | 0.83 |
| Grayhound |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Liam 'malta' Schembri |
48 - 32 | +16 | 89.9 | 63.6% | 1.30 |
 Simon 'Sico' Williams |
41 - 33 | +8 | 74.6 | 67.3% | 1.22 |
| Christopher 'dexter' Nong |
40 - 43 | -3 | 81.2 | 72.7% | 1.08 |
| Joshua 'INS' Potter |
34 - 31 | +3 | 65.7 | 69.1% | 1.04 |
| Ollie 'DickStacy' Tierney |
32 - 44 | -12 | 74.3 | 67.3% | 0.92 |
3rd Biggest Upset
The 3rd worst loss was with Liquid at the PGL Krakow Major 2017 Main Qualifier. Yes, this was before the entire Major system had a revamp and we did away with these silly named stages and considered all 24 teams that played in the Major as part of the Major. But for those that remember FlipSid3 Tactics, you remember that no matter what they did, they were qualifying for the Major. They were inevitable. Despite being ranked 39th in the world, they took on the 9th ranked Liquid who were facing elimination in the 2-2 Swiss match.
FlipSid3 and Liquid had to duke out the BO1 on Mirage where it didn't just go into one overtime, or two overtimes, but three overtimes as the CIS squad stole away a major (pun intended) upset on one of the biggest stages.
LiquidFlipSid3| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Josh 'jdm64' Marzano |
38 - 31 | +7 | 84.8 | 81.2% | 1.31 |
| Nick 'nitr0' Cannella |
37 - 31 | +6 | 79.5 | 75.0% | 1.23 |
| Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken |
31 - 34 | -3 | 67.2 | 58.3% | 0.91 |
| Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski |
27 - 38 | -11 | 75.0 | 62.5% | 0.89 |
| Peter 'stanislaw' Jarguz |
25 - 33 | -8 | 61.1 | 70.8% | 0.88 |
| FlipSid3 |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Denis 'electroNic' Sharipov |
48 - 32 | +16 | 115.6 | 81.2% | 1.51 |
| Georgi 'WorldEdit' Yaskin |
36 - 31 | +5 | 79.4 | 68.8% | 1.17 |
 Yegor 'markeloff' Markelov |
33 - 35 | -2 | 64.3 | 66.7% | 0.96 |
| Jan 'wayLander' Rahkonen |
26 - 33 | -7 | 67.4 | 60.4% | 0.89 |
| Andrey 'B1ad3' Gorodenskiy |
23 - 27 | -4 | 50.0 | 68.8% | 0.81 |
2nd Biggest Upset
It was hard to determine what the biggest upset was, and if this is actually valid considering how TYLOO is always a bogey team and underrated back in the day coming from Asia, but we feel this is valid. In 2016, the 8th ranked Liquid was playing against the 50th ranked TYLOO once again in Malmo, this time it being the Dreamhack Masters Malmo 2016. This Liquid team, featuring the likes of Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev, tragically fell to the Ke "captainMo" Liu led TYLOO in a double-overtime BO1 group elimination match on Overpass.
It was early days of what we now consider to be the best American team in the region, but Liquid was still a formidable opponent and a loss of this stature was big back then and still remains big now. It was really the worst loss that Nick "nitr0" Cannella and Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski have experienced, until yesterday.
LiquidTYLOO| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nick 'nitr0' Cannella |
44 - 28 | +16 | 119.4 | 78.0% | 1.55 |
| Spencer 'Hiko' Martin |
31 - 30 | +1 | 81.7 | 78.0% | 1.15 |
| Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski |
28 - 31 | -3 | 77.6 | 75.6% | 1.04 |
| Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostyliev |
28 - 34 | -6 | 68.3 | 58.5% | 0.88 |
| Kenneth 'koosta' Suen |
19 - 30 | -11 | 52.6 | 68.3% | 0.79 |
| TYLOO |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 YuLun 'Summer' Cai |
38 - 25 | +13 | 98.6 | 80.5% | 1.50 |
| YuanZhang 'Attacker' Sheng |
38 - 32 | +6 | 106.3 | 75.6% | 1.41 |
| Hui 'DD' Wu |
30 - 31 | -1 | 90.7 | 78.0% | 1.13 |
| Ke 'captainMo' Liu |
22 - 32 | -10 | 62.6 | 73.2% | 0.87 |
| HaoWen 'somebody' Xu |
25 - 30 | -5 | 55.0 | 61.0% | 0.80 |
The Biggest Upset
With all of those listed out, it leaves us to yesterday, where Liquid were not only upset, but simply overrun in a 2-0 demolishing that looks like an absurd fluke and unrepeatable event. Rare Atom was ranked 62nd in the world, while Liquid is ranked 3rd. With 57 teams separating them, it should have been an easy game for the Americans, but it was the complete opposite.
Starting the series on Inferno, Liquid quickly letting their opponent pick Inferno as Andrew "kaze" Khong and co. won their opening T-side pistol and the following two rounds. Despite an eventual answer from Liquid, the NA favorites struggled to put consecutive rounds together for the majority of the half, paving the way for Rare Atom to win their T-side 9-6. After switching sides, Rare Atom were the first to find double digits and match point due to a clinical CT-side. Towards the end of the map, Liquid had a chance to save some face as they won the next four rounds to find double digits, however it was too little too late as Rare Atom clinched the map 16-11.
Moving onto Overpass, despite it being Liquid's map pick, they struggled to get anything going on their T-side. This failure allowed Rare Atom to clinch their CT-side 13-2 before sending Liquid down into the lower bracket with a perfect T-side. Over the course of the series, to add insult to injury, Rare Atom won all four pistol rounds while Malaysian AWPer kaze only died four times on Overpass.
LiquidRare Atom| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis |
26 - 37 | -11 | 65.8 | 63.0% | 0.89 |
| Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski |
28 - 35 | -7 | 63.3 | 60.9% | 0.82 |
| Josh 'oSee' Ohm |
20 - 33 | -13 | 56.3 | 58.7% | 0.72 |
| Keith 'NAF' Markovic |
18 - 31 | -13 | 54.8 | 60.9% | 0.72 |
| Nick 'nitr0' Cannella |
17 - 36 | -19 | 50.2 | 56.5% | 0.56 |
| Rare Atom |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Andrew 'kaze' Khong |
39 - 14 | +25 | 83.9 | 95.7% | 1.61 |
| Yi 'JamYoung' Yang |
33 - 22 | +11 | 85.5 | 87.0% | 1.36 |
| Qianhao 'Moseyuh' Chen |
40 - 25 | +15 | 85.4 | 82.6% | 1.32 |
| Jingxiang 'Mercury' Wang |
34 - 31 | +3 | 82.5 | 76.1% | 1.23 |
| Zhuo 'advent' Liang |
26 - 18 | +8 | 64.2 | 82.6% | 1.22 |
With Liquid already getting their fluke of the year out of the way, there is hope that the Americans won't have a loss like that until 2024 or 2025, at least. It's nice to get such a loss out of the way early on in the year as we can all remain confident the surely it won't happen again. Surely.
