CSGO: Liquid crushes ENCE to win IEM Chicago, wins 5th title in a row

Liquid won IEM Chicago 2019 after an overwhelming 3-0 victory over ENCE.

It’s hard to believe that the final at United Center was so one-sided. Liquid entered the finals looking for their 20th consecutive win series as well as their 5th consecutive title. The North American boys easily passed the first two maps in the BO5 series. Inferno’s third map was more intense, but overall, Liquid was still the team in control of the game.

The North American tycoon ended the season sublime, adding another trophy as well as a point for Intel Grand Slam Season 3. As for ENCE, it’s hard to draw anything commendable from them, except for the map Inferno.

Liquid got off to a rough start at Overpass but bounced back quickly and took control of everything, forcing ENCE to use a timeout after just 5 rounds. At this point, the Finnish team understood that they were in a difficult position. However, things got worse after nitr0 got an ace in a round where Liquid had almost no chance of winning.

It’s as if they can’t lose a round… @TeamLiquid are on a roll on Overpass!#IEMhttps://t.co/JCaCtOvQYi pic.twitter.com/6bNHX1JHvV

— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) July 21, 2019

ENCE seemed to be out of shape for most of the CT rounds and squandered their lead, resulting in a 14-1 loss in the first half.

Probably thinking about the next map, but ENCE still got themselves another round thanks to a 4 from allu. However, things turned out to be hopeless when Liquid responded in the next round – despite having no items – to end everything.

Nuke, ENCE’s map pick, echoes what happened on the first map: the Finns won the pistol round but couldn’t take advantage of it. Liquid tightened their defense and quickly finished the first half with an overwhelming score of 13-2.

Liquid with a relaxed mentality easily reached the map point after the pistol round – their first pistol round win in this series. ENCE then broke the opponent’s winning streak, but again, they had to give up early to move on to the third map.

The story of @TeamLiquid #IEM pic.twitter.com/sR44rAIm6y

— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) July 21, 2019

ENCE gradually recovered at Inferno, and also had several consecutive wins, narrowing the gap to 4-5. It seemed that the Finnish team would come back, but Liquid dominated to lead 10-5.

Twistzz exploded in the second pistol round with a 4, widening the gap between the two teams even more. ENCE knew they had to play with a cool head to close the gap. The team pushed the game to the 30th round and almost pushed it to overtime, unfortunately, nitr0 had two important frags in the 2v3 situation, and Stewie2K put an end to ENCE in the final 1v1 phase.

Final rankings of teams at IEM Chicago 2019:

first. Liquid – $125,000
2. ENCE – $50,000
3-4. MIBR – $25,000
3-4. Vitality – $25,000
5-6. G2 – $8,500
5-6. Heroic – $8,500
7-8. Envy – $4,000
7-8. Renegades – $4,000