On September 18, Team Liquid will face Complexity Gaming in the ESL Pro League Season 20 playoffs for CS2, starting at 20:30 EEST in a best-of-three format. Here's a concise analysis and prediction:
Team Liquid is in strong form with a rating of 6.2 at S-tier events over the past month. They reached 7-8th place at IEM Cologne 2024 and qualified for IEM Rio 2024. Liquid won four of their last five matches, including clean sweeps against FLUFFY AIMERS, Legacy, ENCE, and Virtus.pro, with their only loss to Team Vitality. They finished second in Group D of the EPL group stage.
Complexity Gaming has a rating of 6.1 at S-tier events. They finished 9-12th at IEM Cologne 2024 and failed to qualify for BLAST Premier: Fall Final 2024. Complexity won four of their last five matches, defeating MOUZ twice, Astralis, and FaZe Clan. Their sole loss was to BIG. They advanced from fourth place in Group C and eliminated FaZe Clan in the EPL playoffs.
Map Preferences:
- Liquid tends to ban Inferno and favour Nuke and Ancient, with high win rates on these maps. They are likely to ban Inferno and pick Nuke.
- Complexity usually bans Mirage and selects Vertigo, where they have a strong win rate, and Anubis. They are expected to ban Mirage and choose Vertigo, possibly leaving Ancient as the decider.
In their last match at IEM Cologne 2024, Liquid won 2-0 against Complexity, which adds to their confidence.
Prediction: Team Liquid 2-1 Complexity Gaming
Liquid's recent strong performance and favourable map pool make them the likely winners, despite Complexity's good form.
ESL Pro League Season 20 runs from September 3 to 22 in Malta, with a $750,000 prize pool.