Let’s have a look at a couple of teams that will be aiming to lift the title on the Australian soil:
Team Liquid
Team Liquid arrives in Sydney as one of the favorites to lift the trophy. The team had a good showing in Miami. The NA organization lost to the reigning champions of IEM Sydney, FaZe Clan. This was their second tournament where Liquid finish at 2nd place.
Twistzz and company will be aiming to win it all on the Australian soil. The had a perfect performance in the group stage of the BLAST Pro Series Miami. They finished at first place with a perfect 5-0 record after beating some of the best including FaZe, Na’VI and Astralis. Then they were demolished by FaZe in the final. We really hope that they could just fight the 2nd place curse in Sydney.
5 invites, 5 Major Legends! The top NA roster in #CSGO @TeamLiquid is joining the fight Down Under at IEM Sydney 2019! #LETSGOLIQUID
? https://t.co/i59sz3qmxq pic.twitter.com/SSKNslpRs4
— Intel®ExtremeMasters (@IEM) March 11, 2019
Earlier in April, they had a very decent performance at the Americas ESL Pro League Season 9. They finished with a 3-0 record in the first round. The NA team didn’t have any trouble against Lazarus, Complexity Gaming, and Ghost Gaming. They are all set to compete in the finals of the competition in June.
Before choking in Miami, Liquid lost to Australia in the Sao Paulo edition of the competition. Yet, we believe that they have all the right to win in Sydney. They have won the iBUYPOWER Masters IV earlier in 2019. After that they had a 5th place finish Katowice Major. Since Astralis will not be competing in Australia, they should get the trophy this time around.
FaZe Clan
It was expected that FaZe will be making big changes to its roster since they had a series of poor results. The team was eliminated early in the IEM Katowice, then they finished second from the bottom at Sao Paulo. Lastly, they finished at 7th place at StarSeries & i-League CS:GO Season 7. But the team bounced back after winning the BLAST Pro Series Miami. They completely dominated Liquid in the grand final and proved to the world that they are ready to compete against the best. This win was enough to get them back to the fourth place in the HLTV rankings. FaZe Clan is also in a strong seat to qualify for the $500,000 tournament, BOS World Cup that takes place later this year.
Things are looking quite well for FaZe as they have also secured the spot for the ESL Pro League S9 Finals that will take place in June. They reigned supreme in Group B by beating NiP, Heroic, and devil.one. They have surely formulated the winning strategy and will be looking to retain their title.
??? ANNOUNCING @FaZeClan AS OUR NEXT INVITED TEAM TO #IEM SYDNEY 2019!
? https://t.co/aTo8QFobb3 pic.twitter.com/cBs3loRlah
— ESL Australia (@ESLAustralia) November 26, 2018
In the three matches played, they dominated in all aspects of the game. Faze Clan’s roster was properly coordinated, made cohesive rotations and were incredible in their T side pushes. They also did the same when they beat Astralis 16-5 and Liquid 2-0. So we can expect some strong performance by Niko and company in IEM Sydney.
