TEAM LIQUID — CHAMPION OF THE INTERNATIONAL 7
Team Liquid goes home with a trophy and almost 11 million dollars!
For those of you who watched the stream, you may be familiar with this picture. Yes, this was the exact moment Team Liquid from EU became the champions of The International 2017. Not only did they win the whole tournament, they made history. Team Liquid became the first team in the history of The International tournaments to win in such a dominating fashion. They defeated their opponents, Newbee, with a score of 3–0.
Both Newbee and Team Liquid were teams that entered the tournament via direct invitation. Newbee originates from the China server while Team Liquid dominated the EU region. Team Liquid rose to the Grand Finals after being sent to the lower brackets by the China first seed, iG. Vitality, in the first round of the upper bracket games. But they didn’t stay down, powering through their opponents one at a time, they finally found themselves in the Grand Finals. And though the odds were against them in the beginning, considering Newbee’s dominating performance in the upper brackets, no one questioned their skill after their second victory in Best of 5 series.
In a pre-finals interview with TL’s Matumbaman, the player talked about how they weren’t confident in the way they played and how they tried to copy other teams. The team found that their egos were getting in the way of progress and saw a need to switch up the roster. In January, Team Liquid replaced BuLba with GH for the 4/5 position. Since then, the team’s won over 5 tournaments, although none of there were Majors. Until now.
The Prize Pool Distribution
The prize pool, including the 25% profit from the Battle Pass purchases, totaled up to 24 million dollars. Nevertheless, Dota 2 is known for having the biggest prize pool in the eSports scene. So teams that qualify for the tournament have already won a substantial amount of money. Here’s how much each team won:
1st Place — Team Liquid — $10,862,682
2nd Place — Newbee — $3,950,066
3rd Place — LGD Forever Young — $2,592,231
4th Place — LGD Gaming — $1,728,154
5th/6th Place — iG Vitality & Virtus. Pro — $1,110,956
7th/8th Place — Team Empire & OG — $617,198
9th — 12th Place — Digital Chaos & TNC Pro Gaming & Evil Genius & Team Secret — $370,319
13th — 16th Place — Execration & Infamous & Cloud 9 — $123,440
17th/18th Place — Fnatic & HellRaisers — $61,720
All-Star Game — Mixed Players — $100,000
If your favourite team didn’t win this year, there’s always next year! Remember to practice hard yourselves. Happy Gaming!
