League of Legends: sorry Liquid you’re not the best LCS team of all time…yet
By Josh Tyler
Comparing Liquid’s international performance to TSM/C9
In Cloud9’s first year as a member of the LCS, they secured themselves a spot in the quarterfinals of the bracket stage of the World Championship by virtue of their first-place finish in NA. They ultimately fell in that quarterfinals series to Fnatic in a 1-2 loss, but C9 had shown that they had some promise when it came to international events.
The following year, C9 posted a strong 4-2 record in Group D where they made it out of the group of death (famously, thanks to KaBuM! upsetting Alliance, paving the way for C9 to make it out of groups) before falling in the quarterfinals again. This time, the 1-3 series loss to Samsung Blue hurt, but it ultimately gave the C9 Season 3/Season 4 dynasty a decent 6-7 record at the World Championships. Combined with their 3-3 record at the All-Star invitational tournament that year (3-1 in groups followed by an 0-2 series loss to OMG), C9’s dynasty ended their run with a 9-10 record internationally.
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The TSM dynasty of 2016 is largely acknowledged to have hit one of the strongest “groups of death” of all time, getting placed in a group with eventual finalist Samsung Galaxy and Chinese powerhouse RNG. TSM actually split their series with Samsung, but unfortunately did not make it out of groups despite tying RNG’s 3-3 record due to losing both games against the Chinese foes in that group stage.
In the Mid-Season Invitational the following year, the Doublelift-less TSM would fail to get out of group stage with only a 4-6 record. However, TSM would manage to redeem themselves when, with Doublelift back on the team, they went 5-1 in the group stage before sweeping the EU representative Unicorns of Love in three straight games, giving them an overall record in the tournament of 8-1.
This is where all the good vibes end for TSM internationally, however. Despite getting a much easier draw in the 2017 World Championships, TSM only managed to finish with a 3-4 record, unable to make it out of groups after losing the final tiebreaker to Europe’s Misfits. In the end, though, TSM’s dynasty ended with an international record of 18-14, which is quite impressive.
Now, on to Team Liquid, the team with the most international experience of any of these dynasties despite not having played a single game in their second Worlds appearance. TL started their international run on a similar path to TSM’s at MSI. In 2018, they failed to make it out of groups with an identical 4-6 record that TSM posted the year before. Then, with a new format coming to Rift Rivals, Liquid was the only North American team able to post a winning record, with a 2-1 showing as a team in groups but then losing their only game in the finals stage.
Then, we get to the 2018 World Championships, where Team Liquid was the number one seed representing the LCS. Yes, they got arguably one of the more difficult draws in Group C, but unfortunately Liquid continued the trend of dynastic teams not getting out of groups by posting only a 3-3 record, not good enough to match Group C kings KT Rolster and EDG.
Here, of course, is where Liquid fans begin to jump up and down and point out that Liquid was NA’s only decent representative internationally in 2019, with a second-place performance at MSI and the only winning team at Rift Rivals. Well, let’s examine.
At MSI, yes, TL did shock everyone by beating defending World Champions Invictus Gaming 3-1 in their series, before getting swept by G2 3-0. However, what all Liquid fans conveniently forget is that during that same MSI, Liquid barely made it out of groups with a 4-6 record. Overall, they posted a 7-10 record at MSI. At Rift Rivals, yes, they again were the only team to post a positive record (a 3-1 record including the finals) but that only brought their 2019 international record to 10-11.
So, that leaves us with the Team Liquid dynasty ultimately having a 19-22 record internationally. This is a 46.34% win rate internationally, compared to S3/S4 Cloud9’s 47.37% win rate and S6/S7 TSM’s international winning percentage of 56.25%.