What to expect from Liquid v. Monte

After besting FURIA today, Liquid will head into battle against Monte tomorrow. With Monte being a relatively new squad with few LAN maps, Liquid are honestly in a great position to capitalize on Monte's generous seeding on account of their old lineup to smash them to claim a relatively easy path into playoffs. Liquid should be in a prime position to take a clean 2-0 against Monte barring any meltdown to set up a seeding match against the winner of MOUZ v. GamerLegion.

Liquid flowing to playoffs?

While Liquid did take down FURIA in their opener it was a quite frustrating match at times, especially as FURIA are still using Kayke "kye" Bertolucci as a stand-in. However, Liquid are undoubtedly improving since the RMR and if IEM Chengdu is anything to go by, they should be able to take down Monte and their way into playoffs tomorrow.

• Twistzz and NAF are impeccable as always

• YEKINDAR had a number of good rounds versus FURIA

• Very few coaches have more experience than zews

Monte's Misadventures

While Monte won their opening match at EPL against FORZE, it is worth remembering that FORZE is a Frakenstein's monster of a roster that sees Owen "smooya" Butterfield pulled out of the black lagoon of the British scene to play with a mixteam of CIS talent. That roster had never played together and they still have Monte some trouble so it is unknown how well they will perform against a more proper squad like Liquid. Gytis "ryu" Glušauskas needed a very strong game to push Monte over the line and that very well may be needed again if Monte wants to beat Liquid.

• ryu's 1.22 rating was needed to claim a close win

• Monte have very little LAN experience with this new roster

• Woro2k is in a mildly better stats position in the AWP IGL battle, albeit with lower tier matchups

Previous Matchups

These two teams have never played each other.

Likely Vetoes

Liquid are the older lineup here by three months thanks to Monte's recent changes, so the expectation is for them to have a slight advantage in the veto due to having a more settled map pool. The only oddity here is that unlike most European teams, Monte haven't played that many maps recently so Liquid may be lacking data on the map pool Volodymyr "Woro2k" Veletnjuk has crafted for his new team.

As always, these vetoes come with the caveat that they are highly speculative as they depend on whether Monte, as the higher-ranked team at the time of seeding, chooses to pick first or ban last. We will assume they ban last. For those curious on why Monte has a higher seed, it is due to the seeding process being done some time ago when Liquid lacked ranking points on the ESL World Ranking.

• Liquid ban Vertigo (Permaban)

• Monte ban Inferno (Permaban)

• Liquid pick Ancient (80% Winrate)

• Monte pick Mirage (76% Winrate)

• Anubis could be decider (16% Winrate Δ, both teams have ample experience on the map)

Analysis: Looking at the veto, Liquid should make out fairly well if Monte vetos to their strengths. In a world where they aren't ever going to get Inferno, being able to play their second-best map (Ancient) while also getting a map everyone plays (Mirage) is pretty good. As for the decider, it could go elsewhere, but Anubis is a comfortable pick for both teams.

Liquid will be facing off against Monte tomorrow at 01:30PM.