Where Luck Drew Short: An Analysis of the TL vs. LG Famous Round

The major may have ended about a week ago, but many avid Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players still are baffled by the AWP shot done by LG's coldzera. Albeit people argue about things like jumping accuracy and other taboo subjects in CS:GO and how they influence pro matches, it is fair to say without any doubt that Team Liquid got shut down with a serious comeback on Mirage by Luminosity. For this article, this famous round will be discussed and some insight on how the American team fell into the trap.

Initial Start of the Round

We see both Team Liquid and Luminosity on a full buy this specific round. Team Liquid is able to buy full utility with money left over, but Luminosity is going to deal with limited grenades on Fallen and Coldzera in order to afford a double-AWP setup. Despite the fact Luminosity is in a "all or nothing" situation, they are able to afford this expensive setup with limited funds. This doesn't benefit them to the greatest advantage, because if they win the round and suffer a few casualties, rebuying their loadout is going to be a complicated issue. To add, even when Liquid loses this round, they still have a tremendously large economy to rely on for a round or possibly two. On a CT-sided map like Mirage, the Terrorist has to delicately consider where they smoke out. 

The Liquid players discuss a new way to choke out a serious advantage.

Due to the fact Liquid had been winning rounds on a streak, losing this round meant a reset back to the meager $1400 loss bonus.

Early Round

Immediately once Luminosity gets out of their own spawn, they go into the usual 2/1/2 setup. Oddly enough, coldzera opts to AWP on the B bombsite instead of A. This is a fairly strange decision because of the way Counter-Terrorists can be flushed out of their positions. For example, coldzera could be simply forced into the open with a single molotov. As well, Liquid is known to commonly rush out from Palace and Ramp. In this scenario, I can give coldzera some justification since FalleN could support defending the A site from Sniper's Nest. On the Terrorist side, we see EliGE pushing into mid to obtain information and bait out a few flashes (along with AWP shots) from FalleN. His teammates are split into pairs trying to play mind games with their enemy. For nitr0 and adreN, they are being passive and only awaiting to see if any aggression will come at them. Meanwhile, s1mple and Hiko do the same, although s1mple gets fnx to waste a smoke grenade. 

Strange decision from Team Liquid to make EliGE face FalleN instead of s1mple, but the smoke on CAT protects the lone Terrorist.

Mid Round

Because EliGE manages to get FalleN rotated over into Jungle, adreN and nitr0 make their way through Underpass. Because of the overall synergy on Luminosity, TACO watches Middle passively by guarding from the window of Ladder Room. In the next photo, nitr0 gets into a firefight with TACO where both make it out alive, with the cost of nitr0 being brought down to 2 HP. Fnx dedicates himself to Connector, leaving both sites held by a single teammate. Seeing it from an observer's standpoint, the positioning of the Counter-Terrorists is solid. They are able to expect two are lurking around, leaving three to seek frags in Mid. If TL were to play this round differently, they could've had s1mple smoke out connector and have EliGE push up CAT onto B site.

Fnx out, TACO in. 

Pre-Conflict

After a whole minute of tiresome pre-fires and info-hunting, Liquid unites as a whole squadron and decides to push out into the Apartments. As mentioned earlier, they could've do a 1 CAT / 4 Apartment push where EliGE stays quiet in the Ladder Room until he is needed to charge into the battle. Both teams make me considerably bothered with a rare form of OCD in this moment; why are FalleN and Fnx watching Mid together like this? Why doesn't fnx leave to support B and stick Fallen watching Palace? They already have TACO watching underpass, and it would be irrelevant for them to worry about any Terrorists pushing into Connector if an assault on the A bombsite occurs. Nobody is innocent on Luminosity's side, especially when TACO still is holding onto a smoke that could be used on Apartments. 

Liquid managing to hold onto their utility for taking site, however this will be proven unnecessary when coldzera shows them defense.

Taking Site

With only half of a minute left into the round, Liquid groups up and starts a B take. To their misfortune, coldzera is more than prepared to face the whole enemy team by himself. Not just prepared, but with luck on his side. In case if you didn't watch the game, or want to re-watch one of the best moments in CS:GO history, the video is directly below.

KQLY doesn't have anything on this.

What went wrong?

Although I would've prefered to see the 1/4 split happen, there were tons of things that could've been done better for this round. For starters, we only see Liquid smoke off one pillar and just straight push into the site. It is understandable a team wants to save some molotovs and smokes to hold the site during retake, but Liquid obviously knows one could be hiding on the bombsite in preparation to assure he can buy time for his peers. If they wanted to only counter the person(s) on the bombsite, they could throw a molotov onto the van to be safely ignorant of that hiding spot. Or, if they wanted to give the element of surprise, they could've smoked the edge of the apartment balcony and popped into the face of coldzera.

Some could say that insane play cost Liquid the round, and even the map. While it remains true that collateral shot from coldzera essentially shut down Liquid that round, it wasn't just that incident that put the Americans (and the Ukranian) on tilt. On a map like Mirage, some people need to remember that using grenades is a key factor to having successful attacks while on the Terrorist side. There are tons of areas where Liquid failed to clear out efficiently, letting retakes become a cakewalk for the Brazilians. 

What have we learned from this? Sometimes it is better to get the most of your grenades, and get the bomb down, rather than risk it and just pray your team wins all the aim duels.

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