The biggest esports tournament has wrapped up with a climactic battle between Team Liquid and Newbee, marking the end of this year’s The International 2017. Team Liquid has pulled off an achievement never seen before in the “The International” series, being the only team to ever perform a clean sweep against their opposition in the grand finals. TL were able to take out Newbee 3:0 in the finals in the best of 5 series.
At $10,860,000 USD, almost 45% of the total prize pool, Team Liquid were the first team to break the $10,000,000 USD winnings mark; not only a record in Dota, but in esports history. The total prize pool ended up to be a staggering $24,700,000 USD, breaking last year’s world record by around $3,000,000 USD.
Newbee also took home an extremely substantial prize of $3,905,000 USD, which should help soften the somewhat embarrassing blow of losing 3:0.
Team Liquid started off as underdogs and were not foreseen to have taken out the International. While they are by no means a poor team, many saw them as a mid-tier outfit, likely making it as far as the quarter-finals. Their performance at last year’s The International 2016 was fairly poor, only being able to reach 7th-8th place after their 0:2 loss to Fnatic. Since then over the past year, they have seriously stepped their game up, winning a variety fairly large tournaments.
Liquid were the victors of the Dream League Season 6 and StarLadder I-League Star Series Season 3. In a recent tournament, they had also beaten who most considered the top team and the chosen one to smash out Ti7, Evil geniuses, in a 3:1 final for the EPICENTER 2017.
TL were seeded into Group A, one of the hardest groups in the tournament alongside Evil Geniuses, Team Secret and LGD Gaming. Due to the extremely tough competition, Team Liquid battled their way through the group stages and out-performed the expectations of many, battling neck to neck with LGD Gaming for the top spot on the group. As the winners of Group A, Team Liquid were given the opportunity to choose their opponent from the 3rd-4th placed team in Group B. They determined iG to be their most favourable opponent, however, this proved unwise, suffering a 1-2 defeat and dropping to the lower bracket.
After this minor set back, they dropped their last game against Team Secret before winning every series after that to enter the finals – eventually coming out of the other end champions and winners of this year’s International. Great show.
Watch Team Liquid as they battle their way to the top!
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