The Story of Team Liquid: The Fans Who Became Champions

team liquid didn't start as a pitch to investors it wasn't hatched in the mind of a marketing executive or designed to sell ads it didn't have any sponsors hoodies or a team specific hashtag it's team liquid and that's what it means to them over 20 years of history some of its fans became players and eventually some of its players became owners they are the only team to lift the trophy back to back to back to back and they are the best team north america has ever produced but the team never lost the things that had made it unique and it held on to the people who had helped it evolve even as the entire esports landscape shifted dramatically there's no other story like it in esports this is the story of team liquid [Applause] [Music] in the year 2000 the liquid clan in starcraft brood war was one of a million user-created affiliations for victor nazgul goosens who became leader of the liquid clan it was something that could let him choose the kinds of players he'd play with the players that joined team liquid they were all best in class like top in the world like great great players but they were also great people there was a group of folks that had a lot of respect for each other didn't really trash talk just kind people and and that was really important for us but liquid became more than a clan in the early 2000s they launched their website teamliquid.net here fans could discuss the latest news in both korean and foreign starcraft competitions on their forums i don't even remember how old i was exactly maybe around like 11 12 13 and liquid was always the main hub in the terms of like reddit is like a hub for discussion for a lot of people teamliquid.net was that hub and they were always like the pinnacle of like starcraft 2 esports for me as like a you know as a foreigner as they call it in the starcraft 2 scene and as the website approached 10 years of following starcraft in 2010 and the second game in the series neared release they became a sponsored team their first sponsorships in 2010 gave them pro-team status and even allowed them to send players to korea where one of them made semi-finals at gsl the deepest a foreigner had ever gone we should be seeing the gg anytime now yeah this game is done i am so proud of jinro i'm sure you all are as well we have a non-korean in the final ggo and that is it jin row moves on to the round of four he's so happy 2012 was an important year for esports counter-strike global offensive release dota 2 and league of legends were in full swing and the idea of an esports organization growing alongside those games made some obvious sense but liquid did something different sure they signed a dota 2 squad but at a time when many premier organizations were looking to newer games they chose to enter super smash bros melee that 2014 entry to smash bros saw liquid sign ken and kdj which at the time was a huge commitment but things were about to change dramatically not only for liquid but for the history of esports as a whole in 2015 the north american lcs had a problem one of their teams was sponsored by curse a multimedia company that also ran fan sites and notably a voice over ip service called curse voice but a partnership to promote curse voice with multiple other lcs teams was deemed impossible while the company fully sponsored their own team and so in january 2015 team curse merged with liquid taking the liquid name giving them a spot in the nalcs and crucially bringing on steve liquid 112 r hansen a former player turned director of esports for curse when i reached out to victor that first conversation i remember i did a call with him and i was like hey so i'd love to chat with you about possibly merging our companies together and he's like who are you [Laughter] unlike the realistic and analytical nazgul steve was creative and idea-focused i i feel like steve wakes up with probably like 20 new ideas every single day um and i like to take my time and filter through them we're just very different people you know we make decisions differently we process information differently we lead differently and so i felt like that in of itself was the fabric of building a great leadership team besides a new partnership at the top the merger gave liquid access to league of legends a fast-growing discipline that had global appeal and seemed poised to take over the esports space but it also reinforced their investment in a game they already supported smash the merger meant that two of curses smash players chill and dude and hungrybox were now on team liquid i felt good i felt good because i knew of the size of the org i knew their legacy in starcraft and i also knew that quite simply put there were much more mainstay in the esports scene hungrybox was making waves in smash he was one of the five gods known for his jigglypuff play and his competitive intensity in 2015 dreamhack winter would play host to a melee tournament and hungrybox had a feeling it was his to win there was just one problem he needed liquid's help they were willing to work with me a lot of things that i needed mainly the main risk they took was like listen my buddy lewis here crunch i know it's gonna sound like a gamble would you mind paying half his ticket and i'll meet you guys halfway to go to sweden with me for dreamhack winter and they steve i remember i'll never forget steve said juan do you need him to win and will you guys win if he goes and i said yes if he comes with me is our best shot at winning and i think we can do this and he said we'll cover his whole ticket go in and we we won when armada plays the platforms hbox is all over him i think that is it congratulations to hungrybox making history here on european soil we did it dude i mean just like that's that's it's trust right and it's that level of trust that steve and i have had in each other that has allowed me to i think get to the point that i have and that's really what matters within the team is trust and ability to make these decisions as melee had risen in prominence it had earned a spot among fighting games as greatest at evo previously hbox had fallen just short in both 2014 and 2015. an evo 2016 win would cement both his and liquid's legacy in the esport armada not giving him anything he gets back that could be it theresa [Applause] it gives you affirmation in your own self you look at your hands after you won you look at the lights and sounds and you said like man i really dreamed about this i really envisioned this being what happens to me and i put all my energy and time into doing it and i finally [ __ ] made it but while hungrybox was putting his and liquid's name on melee trophies the organization was expanding too they added a cs go team by signing the former denial esports roster in 2015. by 2016 it featured some of the names that would help the roster explode onto the scene including elige for an organization as old as liquid was this signing was a milestone of sorts elige who had played starcraft and followed the esport didn't just see a prospective employer in liquid he had grown up as a fan when i first joined liquid it was definitely like the team that i've always admired the most like throughout like my esports career like uh and by career i mean just like when i was gaming growing up because of starcraft 2 and everything but liquid was finding new fans too part of that was steve's willingness to enter the spotlight we're gonna see how this looks tomorrow in the sunlight and of course talk about liquid sponsors sorry my htc phone is ringing well that's sometimes it happens part of it was the team's dramatic breaking point documentary offering a candid unfiltered and frankly sometimes shocking look inside the league of legends roster which had struggled to find consistent results the coaching staff doesn't want to work with you they feel like it's a really unprofessional unhealthy work environment it was kind of interesting because it was like even when we weren't winning we were relevant you know it was like uh you'd log on to the league of legends reddit and people were talking about breaking point we had a kind of a duality with our strategy associated with maintaining relevancy within league and contributing to provide content to fans a massive sale of the company's controlling interest to axiomatic in late 2016 meant liquid had more resources than ever but as liquid saw growth added new teams and signed promising players matters were coming to a head in both league of legends and dota 2. on august 12 2017 liquid's league of legends team would face phoenix one for the right to remain in the lcs when we were in promotion relegation and we had our backs against the wall we were playing in those matches if we would have lost them we would have been kicked out of the league and we wanted to fight our way back in and it would have cost the organization millions of dollars right plus whatever kind of brand damage was associated with that and on that exact same day august 12th another one of their teams in one of the org's oldest disciplines was fighting for an opportunity to compete for esports's biggest prize [Applause] it was this unlikely blend a chance to find ultimate glory at exactly the same moment in time that the team needed to ward off a potentially costly and humiliating defeat steve was with the league of legends team while nazgul was at the international's grand finals we were playing our promotion relegation matches and they were so close can they pick them off and they will the knockout for dardoch and they're all dead it's gonna be the eighth it's gonna be the game and it's the match tl back-to-back bo5's win of the promotion tournament and i remember being in the room in the back and there was this feeling of relief and then i think it might have been 30 minutes later we won the international [Applause] in a single day the league of legends roster had saved the organization millions while the dota 2 roster had earned millions from a record 24.7 million dollar prize pool i would actually say like when we won international and and stayed in the lcs i feel like that was the day where i would say we firmly established ourselves as an absolute tier one organization within esports especially if you look at the fact that stargardt had been on the decline right you can argue that we were tier one in like 2010 2011. um but as far as i know there's not really any organizations that have their roots in starcraft that are around uh right now at the top of esports anymore and sure starcraft might have been in its twilight years but other games were stepping up as the score esports broke the story about the impending league of legends franchising model previously only hinted at by riot teams were already lining up to apply for their spot and 2018 saw liquid earn a spot in the newly franchised nalcs after submitting an exhaustive application one that famously included a biographical section about steve's life among other things yeah that was a small section but it was you know a section on how we're going to create apparel what is our roster going to be how are we going to create content how are we going to have a distinctive brand within lcs how are we going to grow our fan base how are we going to grow the team over the next five years you know it was literally five books each book being about 30 pages layout and design with graphics and illustrations and charts and writing and that was our league of legends business plan it was a huge win for liquid in an esport they had committed to and their success didn't stop there bringing back doublelift the ad carry whom steve actually played with years prior they became back to back nalcs champions in 2018 and then tacked on another two in 2019 to win four in a row they are the only team to lift the trophy back to back to back to back and they are the best team north america has ever produced but liquid wasn't done taking new risks and this time it would take them to a whole new continent [Music] rainbow six siege hadn't exactly gotten off to a great start but by 2018 it was clear the game was deep competitive and here to stay liquid wanted a piece of that action but it wasn't obvious who they would sign the league of legends and cs go teams were north american the dota 2 team was a mix from europe and asia and those original liquid brood war players had been from the netherlands so liquid decided to step into one of the most exciting regions and not just rainbow six but esports as a whole brazil after winning pro league season 7 finals in 2018 the team became a consistent top 10 contender in the world featuring explosive and aggressive gameplay backed up by superstars like nesc push from liquid in the back penguin will get taken down a sexy kick rushes in and there's just still more candelas being shot in jonas cannot see a single thing as that gets through more on the board here but more than that the rainbow six team started a relationship that has continued to the present day that's what we're really excited about i was actually just on a presentation this morning talking about our new facility that we're going to be opening up in brazil and how large it's going to be and how many people are going to be there and what we're going to do with that space but even with that new relationship north american cs fans were looking to liquid for a win after a tumultuous period where the roster featured ukrainian phenom simple they had gone back to basics and in 2019 the roster was red-hot he's got the c-set and he's gone it's all on the jw smoked away and it's done finally finally liquid get their notch on the grand slam and stewie is the answer it turns out after all in their sights was the intel grand slam a million dollar prize for winning four premier tournaments organized by esl or dreamhack masters during a ten event window the only team to have done it was astralis the danish powerhouse who won a total of four major titles together it was astralis that drew first blood in the second grand slam season but liquid fired back taking three more against a new class of teens that were looking to become the next dominant contender a two versus two and liquid have the advantage they're trying to bring it down to the two versus one if it's rpk this drop they could be in serious trouble that should do it there we go it's team liquid and that's what it means to them they've taken it at the fourth map the favorites coming into the tournament have just unlocked the intel grand slam at esl one cologne under the belt and a million dollar bonus that's something that was always really cool to me about our grand slam win was that we were just beating random teams we weren't just winning small events we were winning big events against the best teams in the world and we finished it off at cologne where all of the best teams in the world were there liquid did something improbable with this grand slam win but the team's success especially as play went online in 2020 wasn't to last a three versus five to keep liquid in this and it's not happening these two snipers have made a world of difference and now vinnie's looking to lock it down a minute on the clock for naf he runs desperately in and furious qualified still as they stayed at the orcs facility in the netherlands the team got what they needed to remain calm in a rapidly changing world so we pretty much always had really good options like if we ever thought that something was necessary infrastructure-wise or like a boot camp then liquid has gotten it and it's only gotten better with uh the office that we have now in the netherlands which is made dealing with coven and all the travel that we've had to do in the past uh two years now a lot more manageable the facility is incredible we have chefs that are full-time that are providing us two three meals a day and that just relieves a lot of the stress that i think that a lot of other teams probably have on them when they're traveling and speaking of changing worlds the landscape of tactical fps games like counter-strike was about to shift with the release of riots project a now renamed to valorant again the new game brought on a feeding frenzy and by now liquid was so big that they would clearly be angling for a spot they signed a promising lineup featuring names like scream and would later add his brother navera and csgo outcast yampi while they fell short of a masters or champions victory they earned top four at two s-tier tournaments in 2021 but their european roster wasn't the end with riot showing that they wanted to offer more opportunities for women and non-binary people liquid signed a brazilian women's roster further deepening their connections to the country liquid wasn't just hopping on the hot new thing they were trying to rethink old ones too signing top wow guild limit wait chill chill chill chill [Music] let's go [Applause] what the limit uh now liquid folks do i mean that is mastery at it at its finest um so that actually fits perfectly and then together with like the fantasy world approach of mmos like that is gonna be a massive uh massive initiative for us and while their league of legends roster had fallen short of international success the lineup now assembled for 2022 included bjergsen tsm's perennial superstar now playing mid for liquid sometimes when i'm trying to look up are after we play a match and i'm trying to like watch the game on youtube i'll write like oh tsm vs 100 thieves and then i'm like where's the game i can't find the game and i'm like oh yeah i wanted liquid now the new lineup attracted some discussion given that they play in a north american league but residency rules have allowed them to field what is essentially an international roster but for liquid their international identity is a byproduct of a strategy that seeks to achieve international success you owe it to the other players that are on that roster you owe it to your fans who you have said winning is important to build the best absolute roster that you possibly can given whatever rules or constraints there are on the league and so that's what we do every year we approach the offseason with a massive spreadsheet of all the potential players that are available around the world and we determine what is the right mix in order to build a roster to win to do well at worlds to represent north america at worlds but there's one more thing to discuss about liquid in 2021 they extended an offer to some of their longest tenured players to become part owners of the team i think steve was willing to give myself and of course the other couple of athletes that were able to have the opportunity he really wanted to showcase the opportunity for growth of players within the org but he also wanted us to be i think bigger parts because he knew of our experience and he knew the input that we had was kind of invaluable to the scenes in which we represent team liquid didn't start as a pitch to investors or a logo in a marketing deck sure in 2022 it's a business and it certainly deals with those things now but there's something about knowing that the team you cheer for is run by people who understand the feeling when you take over a game the feeling when you achieve something impossible they started off chasing those feelings too and that's why being a liquid fan feels different because whether you're one of the five gods or a fan cheering your heart out you get back what you put in and that's what liquid is about thanks for watching if you want more content like this then hit the sub button and ring the notification bell for unique bite size videos you won't find anywhere else hit up our twitter instagram facebook and tick tock [Music]

Channel: theScore esports

Views: 146,042

Keywords: esports, gaming, theScoreesports, thescore, story of Team Liquid, Team Liquid, liquid csgo, csgo, counter strike, valorant, super smash bros, super smash bros melee, smash esports, dota 2, liquid dota, dota ti, scream valorant, jamppi, stewie 2k, stewie liquid, elige, bjergsen, doublelift, hungrybox, hbox, scream counter strike, league of legends, lol esports, lol esports vods, liquid league of legends, liquid league, starcraft, liquid starcraft, liquipedia, s1mple, eu valorant, hiko, lol

Id: A61pc7smetc

Length: 21min 41sec (1301 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 09 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Tortious_Tortoise]

This is a truly remarkable video. It gets the story of Team Liquid absolutely right. It faithfully tells the story of Liquid's development as an organization, and highlights why I love this team so goddamn much.