Team Liquid

Team Liquid

Location	Netherlands
Founded	2001
Manager(s)	Victor Goossens Steve Arhancet
Sponsors	HyperX HTC Razer Alienware G2A.com Namecheap Quest Nutrition Nissan NeedForSeat LoLClass.com
Divisions	Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft Heroes of the Storm League of Legends StarCraft II Street Fighter Super Smash Bros. Melee
Website	www.teamliquid.net www.teamliquidpro.com}

Team Liquid (TL) is a multiregional professional eSports organization based in the Netherlands. With the release of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, Team Liquid expanded, sponsoring professional players. In 2012, Team Liquid recruited a North American Dota 2 team, marking their first venture into multi-genre management.^[1] In January 2015, Team Liquid officially merged with Team Curse under the Liquid banner, bringing on Steve Arhancet, his supporting staff, and former Curse League of Legends and Street Fighter teams. Team Liquid was founded in 2001 originally as a news site focusing on StarCraft.

History

The website was founded on May 1, 2001 by Victor "Nazgul" Goossens and Joy "Meat" Hoogeveen under the domain teamliquid.cjb.net.^[2] On September 22, 2002 the website was moved to the current address of teamliquid.net. A day later the very first poll was posted as a vote for the website's name with the current name winning over other suggestions such as likwit.com.

Although Team Liquid was known as primarily a StarCraft news site, there are many sub sections on the forums dedicated to other games as well. It was announced on August 30, 2012 that Team Liquid would be expanding to also including Dota 2 as one of their main coverage games. On December 8, 2012, Liquid expanded their eSports franchise for the first time, with the announcement of the recruitment of a North American Dota 2 team.^[1]

On January 6, 2015 Steven Arhancet joins Victor Goosens as co-owner of Team Liquid, officially commencing the merge between former Team Curse Gaming under the Team Liquid banner.^[3]

On January 24, 2015, it was announced that HTC had become an official sponsor of Team Liquid.^[4]

Websites

Main Websites

TeamLiquid - The Team Liquid website primarily provides StarCraft II and Dota 2 coverage. There are also forums for various strategy games. With the launch of StarCraft II, Team Liquid has grown into the largest StarCraft community on the internet, with over 220,000 active members and over eleven million total posts. The website employs four person full-time staff at their New York office to work on the site.^[5]
TeamLiquidPro - Website focusing on Team Liquid eSports team coverage.

Community Websites

LiquidDota - Website directly involving Dota 2.
LiquidLegends - Website directly involving League of Legends.
LiquidHearth - Website directly involving Hearthstone.
Liquipedia – A Pro-Gaming wiki featuring articles about players, tournaments, strategy and other information for StarCraft: Brood War, StarCraft II, Dota 2, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm and Super Smash Bros.

Tournaments and events

In addition to running a community site and team, Team Liquid also hosts a variety of tournaments and events.

Team Liquid Starleague

The two iterations of the TeamLiquid Starleague (or TSL for short) have been the biggest "foreign" (non-Korean) StarCraft: Brood War tournaments. The first TSL sponsored by Razer in 2008 was highly anticipated at the time, sporting all of the world's top Brood War players. It was topped one year later with 2009's TSL 2, which featured a total prize pool of over $20,000 and remains the largest non-Korean Brood War tournament to date.
With the release of Starcraft II, Team Liquid announced a third installment, sponsored again by PokerStrategy.com with a prize pool of $34,700.^[6] The tournament took place between March and May 2011. On 25 April 2012, a fourth installment was announced (TSL 4).

Team Liquid StarCraft II Open

The TL Opens are one-day open single-elimination tournaments alternating between the NA and EU battle.net servers. The eight TL Open events that lead up to the TSL 3 also served as a qualifier for the TSL.

Team Liquid Legacy Starleague

Announced on January 1, 2013, Team Liquid would be hosting a series of online tournaments for "foreign" players of StarCraft: Brood War.^[7]

Community Events

TL Attack: Modeled after a Korean TV show called Bnet Attack, a professional player plays games against non-professionals while chatting with the hosts.
Liquibition: A King-of-the-Hill that is played in Bo7 mode.
TL Arena: A professional player will be matched up with inferior opponents. With each win he gains, another handicap is added that limits his game play options, until he loses or he has defeated a certain number of opponents.

Team

The gaming clan "Liquid" was founded by Victor "Nazgul" Goossens near the end of 2000 after deciding to leave his previous clan. Liquid started with four members for the first months and grew to eight players over the following year. The members of the Liquid clan are handpicked by Goossens based on both personality and talent.^[8] The team has a dedicated news site separate from the more community oriented site at www.teamliquidpro.com, announced and released on May 10, 2011.^[9]

With the arrival of StarCraft II, Team Liquid announced plans to become an active Pro-Gaming Team. Shortly after, sponsorship by The Little App Factory was announced,^[10] which qualified them as a sponsored professional team. This allowed Team Liquid to pay their players a salary and send the team to events around the world. On August 13 2012, three players traveled to Korea in order to live in the OGS training house and compete in GOMTV's Global StarCraft II League (GSL).^[11]^[12]^[13]

Of the three players entering the preliminaries, only one, Dario "TLO" Wünsch qualified for the first two GSL events. He was eliminated out in the Second and First rounds respectively.

The third GSL was the strongest showing of Team Liquid thus far. Three players, Hayder "Haypro" Hussein, Jos "Ret" de Kroon and Jonathan "Jinro" Walsh qualified for the main tournament. While Hussein lost first round and de Kroon in 2nd, Walsh made to the semi-finals, losing 0–4 to the eventual winner Jang "MC" Min-Chul.

In 2012, during GSL Season 2, members Song "HerO" Hyeon Deok and Yun "TaeJa" Young Seo made it to the Round of 8 of the Code S tournament, with TaeJa being eliminated while HerO advanced to the semi-finals of the tournament.

On January 6, 2015, it was announced that Team Liquid acquired the previously known "Curse Gaming" League of Legends team. One week later it was announced that Team Liquid acquired a Counter Strike: Global Offensive team that previously played under the title "Denial eSports".^[14]

On January 24, 2015, it was announced that HTC had become an official sponsor of Team Liquid.^[15]

Main Management

Victor "Nazgul" Goossens is a founding member and now co-owner of Team Liquid. Nazgul originally competed in Brood War prior to forming Team Liquid.

Steve "LiQuiD112" Arhancet joined the Team Liquid staff when Team Curse merged with Team Liquid. Since the merge, Steve has taken the role of co-owner and primarily manages the League of Legends team.^[16]

Current roster

Counter Strike: Global Offensive

Eric "adreN" Hoag
Damien "daps" Steele
Jacob "FugLy" Medina
Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski
Nick "nitr0" Cannella

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Janne "Savjz" Mikkonen
Eugene "Neirea" Shumilin

Heroes of the Storm

Cristofer "Blackscorp" Embareck
Francisco "GranPkt"Antonio Núñez Sorribas
Juan "VortiX" Moreno Durán
Pedro "LucifroN" Moreno Durán
Víctor "FalcoN" Manuel Sánchez López

League of Legends

Diego "Quas" Ruiz
Christian "IWillDominate" Rivera
Kim "FeniX" Jae-hoon
Chae "Piglet" Gwang-jin
Alex "Xpecial" Chu

StarCraft II

Patrick "Bunny" Brix
Song "HerO" Hyeon Deok
Grzegorz "MaNa" Komincz
Jos "Ret" de Kroon
Jens "Snute" Aasgaard
Yun "TaeJa" Young Seo
Dario "TLO" Wünsch

Super Smash Bros. Melee

Kashan "Chillin" Khan
Juan "Hungrybox" Debiedma
Daniel "KDJ" Jung
Ken "Ken" Hoang

Street Fighter

Du "NuckleDu" Dang

Former members

Chris "HuK" Loranger (StarCraft II)
Jimmy "DeMoN" Ho (Dota 2)
Jonathan "Jinro" Walsh (StarCraft II)
Max "qojqva" Broecker (Dota 2)
Peter "Waytosexy" Nguyen (Dota 2)
Sam "BuLba" Sosale (Dota 2)
Tyler "TC" Cook (Dota 2)

Notable achievements