There has been a lot of buzz around this year’s Mid-Season Invitational tournament, and rightfully so. The gathering of every region’s champion, to decide who will be crowned the greatest team on Earth, always brings the hype. However, this time around it feels a little bit different in North America. With Team Liquid representing the NA region, some say our continent is sending it’s best ever representative to the international stage.
Last year, Team Liquid started on a tear of North American competitive League of Legends, and with their most recent championship victory in the spring split of 2019, it doesn’t look to be slowing down. After winning two-straight splits in 2018, Liquid got stronger with the addition of Jensen and CoreJJ to the roster for the 2019 season.
As the North American representative in last year’s Mid-Season Invitational, Team Liquid had a 4W - 6L record in the Group Stage. They would have to play a tie-breaker against EU’s Fnatic in order to see which team would make it to the Playoff Stage, which they lost.
With an improved roster, Team Liquid will have to fight their way out of the Play-In Finals in order to even qualify for the main event and Group Stage. Regardless of their lower qualification (thanks to the previous year performance), Team Liquid is almost guaranteed to play in Groups.
Can they, then, make a proper stand for North America against the top-tier squads from the most dominant regions in League of Legends? Some say they can. Will they be able to upset the bracket and win the whole thing? Well, that’s a tall order, but the noble horses from NA aren’t going to leave without a fight.
Probably the greatest strength that Team Liquid has heading into the 2019 Mid-Season Invitational is their experience on large stages. The team’s ad-carry Doublelift (with his 6 domestic championships and NA Finals MVP) has played at MSI and Worlds multiple times. Team Liquid’s top-laner and support have both won World Championships with previous teams, and jungler Xsmithie and mid-laner Jensen have both been on very successful teams in the past.
On top of their experience, Team Liquid heads into MSI 2019 on the back of three North American Championships, the latest of which came on the back of a stellar reverse sweep against an insanely talented Team SoloMid.
“Next up is international dominance. We’re going to take over MSI,” said TL’s Jensen in their latest vlog.
So, they’ve got the momentum and the composure heading into Vietnam, but do they have the skills to beat the likes of Faker’s SK Telecom T1 or TheShy’s Invictus Gaming?
