LTA champions Team Liquid are eliminated from First Stand after finishing bottom in the Group stage. Defeat against Hanhwa Life Esports sent TL home. Coming into the final series of Groups, Team Liquid needed victory to book a space in the knockouts, while an HLE victory meant that Top Esports would instead earn the final spot.
In the end, three teams were all tied at a 1 Win 3 Loss scoreline, and simple tiebreaker rules decided who advances.
Image credit: Riot Games
The opening win for Hanwha Life — the tournament’s best performers so far — put TL on the backfoot immediately. But the LTA winners fought back in game two in which an odd draft from HLE provided an opening. Solid performances from the likes of APA and Yeon saw Team Liquid take advantage, leveling the series and needing one more win to proceed. It all fell apart in the end, but TL were just as good as TOP or KC in their series overall.
Our First Stand Power Rankings were spot on.
Team Liquid reactions to the elimination were “optimistic”
The team spoke to the media in a post-match press conference after the defeat, and top laner Impact was quick to give his thoughts on potential improvements.
“I have to work on the champion pool and I think to be more detailed. I think we as a team have to be more efficient in distributing the numbers throughout the map, how many people we need in certain situations, and I think we just have to be better at delegating.”
Throughout this tournament I felt like we very much lacked in team-wide play. And I think it also comes down to individual gameplay. But I think I also have to work on a lot of things. I have a lot of room for improvement.
“It also made me feel that all the practice from January until March didn’t really end up becoming as efficient or effective for us. So I think from now on until MSI, we want to make sure we can capitalize off all the practice that we can get.”
Bot laner Yeon was later asked for his takeaways, in particular around the experience facing former World champions AD carries JackeyLove and Viper.
“I think that the way I viewed them is very correct, so I’m glad I had a good feeling of how they both individually played. I think both bot laners are completely different players in terms of playstyle; I think Viper is very clean and solid — it was very hard to break through, JackeyLove is very aggressive and will make a lot of mistakes but extremely good at being aggressive.”
HLE did not disrespect the Draft
Some picks from Hanwha Life dubbed ‘disrespectful’ during the series, particularly those in their game two loss, led to tongue-in-cheek accusations that HLE were trying to throw the series in an effort to have Top Esports eliminated and avoid a potentially tougher opponent later on in the tournament.
But Impact was adamant that this was not the case, citing his understanding of the fellow Korean pros and their seriousness about the game as the reason why he doesn’t believe HLE would play anything but at their best.
“No, I do not believe that they were trying to pick those picks to disrespect us because, Korean players in particular, they’re always serious about the game. So I think in the end they’re very viable picks because in all three games they did have a good reason behind what they picked.”
Image credit: Riot Games
Team Liquid without Spawn bids to improve at MSI
It became clear during MSI that Jake “Spawn” Tiberi will not be part of Liquid’s coaching staff after the event. The news broke that Spawn had other priorities for the year, rather than being a mainstay with the Liquid coaching staff. Both the TL organization and Jake himself stated that this was discussed way ahead of the season and the team was well prepared. A small statement stating the likely exit was given.
“Prior to our First Stand Qualification, Jake had an unmovable obligation on March 14th. Team Liquid Honda players and staff prepared for this with the support of coaches Swiffer and Reignover. We greatly appreciate Spawn’s effort to be with the team until the final hour. Spawn has given 5 years of his dedicated service to this team and we will continue to use the tools and strategies he equipped us with to fulfill his vision. Thank you all for checking in – everything with Spawn and his family are okay!”
Regardless, given how First Stand evolved from the get go, the gap between east and west does not seem as big as it was last year. The continuation of Fearless Draft for the remainder of the season may be a saving grace for western teams once MSI and Worlds roll around.