Team Liquid

Team Liquid

Location	Netherlands
Parent group	Washington Wizards Golden State Warriors
Founded	2000
Manager(s)	Victor "Nazgul" Goossens Steve Arhancet
Sponsors	HyperX HTC AOC Razer Alienware Namecheap Quest Nutrition Nissan NeedForSeat LoLClass.com
Divisions	Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Dota 2 Halo Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft Heroes of the Storm League of Legends Overwatch StarCraft II Street Fighter Super Smash Bros.
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 began 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, Street Fighter, and Super Smash Bros. teams. Team Liquid was founded in 2001 originally as a news website 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 "LiQuiD112" Arhancet joined Victor Goossens 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]

On September 27, 2016 Team Liquid sold its controlling interest to aXiomatic eSports, an investment group consisting of Golden State Warriors co-owner Peter Guber and entrepreneur Ted Leonsis, basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson, AOL co-founder Steve Case.^[5]

Ownership

For other uses, see Axiomatic (disambiguation).

AXiomatic
Industry	Entertainment and sports
Key people	Bruce Stein
Website	www.teamliquid.net

AXiomatic is an entertainment and sports management company. Investors for the group include businesspeople Peter Guber, Tony Robbins), sports Magic Johnson, Ted Leonsis, and technology Ted Case, Eric Lefkofsky.^[6]^[7] The CEO is Bruce Stein, a former CEO and COO of Mattel Toys, Sony Interactive Entertainment and Kenner Products (Hasbro).^[8] On September 27, 2016 aXiomatic announced that it had acquired controlling interest of eSports team Team Liquid.^[9]^[10]^[11]

Other investors include Dodgers executives Lon Rosen and Tucker Kain, Warriors executives Rick Welts and Kirk Lacob, the Washington Nationals owners at Lerner Enterprises, Chicago Cubs president of business operations Crane Kenney and former NFL player Dhani Jones.^[12]

It was announced that Victor Goossens and Steve Arhancet would continue their roles as co-CEOs of Team Liquid after the acquisition.^[13]

Websites

Main websites

TeamLiquid – The Team Liquid website primarily provides StarCraft II coverage but also has some coverage for StarCraft Brood War, Counter-Strike Global Offensive, Heroes of the Storm, and Super Smash Brothers Melee. 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 twenty four million total posts. The website employs four person full-time staff at their New York City office to work on the site.^[14]
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 wiki featuring articles about professional players, tournaments, strategy and other information for StarCraft: Brood War, Warcraft III, StarCraft II, Dota 2, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, Super Smash Bros, Counter-Strike, and Overwatch.

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.^[15] 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.^[16]

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.

eSports 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.^[17] 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.^[18]

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,^[19] 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).^[20]^[21]^[22]

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 March 2014, Team Liquid announced that it had picked up two legendary Melee players: Ken, who is known as the "King of Smash" and KoreanDJ, who is widely considered as the first player to defeat Mew2King ever since he was considered a God, thus starting its Smash team. After acquiring Curse Gaming, it also signed Hungrybox, who is considered to be one of the Five Gods of Melee, and Chillin, who was the first player to defeat Ken during his prime. On August 11, 2015, it picked up top Super Smash Bros. for Wii U player Nairo, who was the only player to knock ZeRo out of a tournament, ending ZeRo's 55 win tournament streak at MLG World Finals.^[23]^[24] On September 28, 2015, Team Liquid announced that KoreanDJ resigned from the organization and retired from competitive Smash, citing persistent hand and wrist pains.^[25]

On January 6, 2015 Liquid acquired the Team Curse's League of Legends roster, which consisted of Quas, IWillDominate, Voyboy, Cop, and Xpecial. The team finished the LCS Spring regular season in 6th place with a 10-9 record. On Week 5 and 6 of NA LCS Piglet was benched and replaced on the starting roster by KEITHMCBRIEF in an effort to try to improve their standings.^[26] In the playoffs they beat Counter Logic Gaming 3–0, before losing to Cloud9 3–2 and finishing in 3rd.

One week after the Curse merger, it was announced that Team Liquid acquired a Counter Strike: Global Offensive team that previously played under the title "Denial eSports".^[27]

On January 24, 2015, it was announced that HTC had become an official sponsor of Team Liquid.^[28]

On September 28, 2015, Team Liquid and Piglet parted ways after another failed qualification bid for the League of Legends World Championship, just a few hours after KoreanDJ resigned from the team.^[29] However, this was apparently a fake leak, as just a few hours later, Team Liquid announced on its Instagram that Piglet has extended his contract until November 2016.^[30]

On October 9, 2015, it was announced that Liquid would once again be fielding a DotA team, after more of a years absence from the competitive DotA scene. Signing the team formally known as 5JungZ, the new Liquid Dota would consist of a medley of new and old European talent.^[31]

Main management

Victor "Nazgul" Goossens is a founding member and now co-owner and co-CEO 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 co-CEO and primarily manages the League of Legends team.^[32]

Current roster

Counter Strike: Global Offensive

Nick "nitr0" Cannella
Spencer "Hiko" Martin
Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski
Josh "jdm64" Marzano
Jacob "Pimp" Winneche^[33]

Dota 2

Lasse "MATUMBAMAN" Urpalainen
Amer "Miracle-" Al-Barkawi
Ivan "MinD_ContRoL" Borislavov
Maroun "GH-GOD" Merhej
Kuro "KuroKy" Salehi Takhasomi

Halo

Tyler "Spartan" Ganza
Kevin "Eco" Smith
Dan "Danoxide" Terlizzi
Braedon "StelluR" Boettcher

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Janne "Savjz" Mikkonen
Eugene "Neirea" Shumilin
Jeffrey "SjoW" Brusi
David "Dog" Caero
Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier

Heroes of the Storm

Ivan "SportBilly" Koturić
Cristoph "Cris" Gowitzke
Raoul "GerdamHerd" Saurbier
Daniel "Shad" González

League of Legends

Samson "Lourlo" Jackson
Kim "Reignover" Yeu-jin
Kim "FeniX" Jae-hun
Jovani "fabbbyyy" Guillen
Matt "Matt" Elento

League of Legends Challenger Series team (Team Liquid Academy)

Colin "Solo" Earnest
Galen "Moon" Holgate
Greyson "Goldenglue" Gilmer
William "Stunt" Chen

StarCraft II

Patrick "Bunny" Brix
Grzegorz "MaNa" Komincz
Jos "Ret" de Kroon
Jens "Snute" Aasgaard
Dario "TLO" Wünsch
Pedro "LucifroN" Moreno Durán
Marc "uThermal" Schlappi

Super Smash Bros.

Street Fighter

Du "NuckleDu" Dang

Overwatch

Keven "AZK" Lariviere
Tim "DaHanG" Fogarty
Adam "MESR" De La Torre
John "Minstrel" Fisher
Andrew "id_" Trulli
Shane "Rapha" Hendrixson

Former members

Tim "dummy" Olson (Overwatch)
Cody "Frisco" Day (Overwatch)
Jacob "vee" Calderon (Overwatch)
Cristofer "BlackScorp" Embareck (Heroes of the Storm)
Víctor "FalcoN" Manuel Sánchez López (Heroes of the Storm)
Fran "GranPkt" Núñez (Heroes of the Storm)
Tyler "Pithx" Entner (Heroes of the Storm)
Shawn "Sheth" David Simon (Heroes of the Storm)
Keaton "Biceps" Consentine (Heroes of the Storm)
Derek "DunkTrain" Arabian (Heroes of the Storm)
John Paul "KingCaffeine" Lopez (Heroes of the Storm)
Pedro "LucifroN" Moreno Durán (Heroes of the Storm)
Juan "VortiX" Moreno Durán (Heroes of the Storm)
Oskar "Jowe" Halamus (Heroes of the Storm)
Joaquim "Lowell" Fitas (Heroes of the Storm)
Kyle "flowsicK" Mendez (Counter-Strike: Global Offensive)
Damien "daps" Steele (Counter-Strike: Global Offensive)
Keith "NAF" Markovic (Counter-Strike: Global Offensive)
Jacob "FugLy" Medina (Counter-Strike: Global Offensive)
Aleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev (Counter-Strike: Global Offensive)
Eric "adreN" Hoag (Counter-Strike: Global Offensive)^[34]
Kenneth "koosta" Suen^[35]
Chris "HuK" Loranger (StarCraft II)
Hayder "HayprO" Hussein (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)
Shawn "Sheth" Simon (StarCraft II)
Tyler "TC" Cook (Dota 2)
Tyler "NonY" Wasieleski (StarCraft II)
Yum "Sea" Bo Sung (StarCraft II)
Yun "TaeJa" Young Seo (StarCraft II)
Mason "Aries" Miller (Halo)
Ryan "Shooter" Sondhi (Halo)
Tyler "Spartan" Ganza (Halo)
Kyle "Elamite" Elam (Halo)
Tyler "Ninja" Blevins (Halo)
Austin "Mikwen" Mikwen (Halo)
Kyle "Chig" Lawson (Halo)
Aaron "Ace" Elam (Halo)
Richie "Heinz" Heinz (Halo)
Steven "Korok" Ashworth (Dota 2)
Brian "FLUFFNSTUFF" Lee (Dota 2)
Michael "ixmike88" Ghannam (Dota 2)
Daniel "KoreanDJ" Jung (Super Smash Bros.)^[36]
Nairoby "Nairo" Quezada (Super Smash Bros.)^[37]
Christian "IWillDominate" Rivera (League of Legends)
Diego "Quas" Ruiz (League of Legends)
Alex "Xpecial" Chu (League of Legends)
Yuri "Keith" Jew (League of Legends)
Jason "AmazHS" Chan (Hearthstone)