📝 Finally on top: Team Liquid 2025 World Finals Preview

Team Liquid came into OWCS 2025 as one of two partner teams in North America.

This roster was assembled with the best American talent the region had to offer. However, a bold decision was made: Lee "KNIFE" Seon-woo, formerly of FNATIC and Crazy Raccoon, would join as the sole import player.

Many in the community feared that slotting one Korean player into a team with full English communication would prove to be a challenge. And those concerns were given their first inkling of credibility in Stage 1, as Team Liquid ultimately lost to NTMR in the Regional Playoffs and failed to qualify for the Champions Clash.

Missing out on the first international LAN was not KNIFE’s fault. He was certainly a strong DPS player, but after the groundbreaking performance from Xavier "zeruhh" Zambrano during the Champions Clash, any team that had the means to do so would want him on their roster. Team Liquid just so happened to be one of the teams with the means to do so, and zeruhh was signed at the start of the next stage.

At the start of Stage 2, both zeruhh and KNIFE rotated playtime. Liquid appeared more in sync and synergized with zeruhh as performances improved. While he was no longer the primary starter, KNIFE was relegated to playing more niche heroes like Mei and Symmetra — heroes that he didn’t have much history with.

As the Stage 2 playoffs began, zeruhh became the full-time starter over KNIFE. This consistent stream of communication ultimately led Team Liquid all the way to the Regional Finals, and eventually the Midseason Championship.

Heading into Stage 3, the team recognized that their best path to victory would involve keeping zeruhh as the primary starter alongside Elliot "TR33" Chu. This meant that KNIFE would be departing the roster in order to play for ONSIDE GAMING in the Korean region. Despite losing a strong player, this now meant that Team Liquid had a consistent 5-man starting roster for all situations.

As the Season 18 balance patch dropped, a new meta began with teams experimenting with a multitude of compositions revolving around a Wrecking Ball dive. When this meta first began, Boston “Infekted” Fine pointed out in Week 1 what everyone already knew: this meta was designed for Team Liquid.

One notable feature of this composition was the DPS. At the start of the stage, Genji and Tracer first took the reins as the dominant core of the new meta. Normally, this type of composition requires two players who can both play flex heroes. Luckily for Team Liquid, their roster was built for every composition possible.

Both DPS players executed this hyper-dive composition expertly. TR33 and zeruhh possessed the ability to rotate between the two heroes at a world-class level — something no other team in the region could do. TR33’s flexibility came to the fore, and he was able to step in on Genji and Echo while zeruhh took the starting Tracer role.

When the meta eventually developed away from Genji-Tracer, Team Liquid seemed to get even stronger. TR33 transitioned seamlessly to covering all hitscan duties, while still showing great flexibility whenever necessary on heroes like Hanzo. Whether it was Freja, Sojourn, Reaper, or even the more niche heroes, there wasn’t a single combination of heroes that TR33 and zeruhh couldn’t perfectly execute.

But it wasn’t just the DPS that helped carry Team Liquid in Stage 3, as all parts of the starting roster were on another level. Infekted’s dominant tank flexibility— and the hyperflexibility of Rupal "Rupal" Zaman and Diego "Vega" Moran in the backline— allowed Team Liquid to execute almost every composition possible.

Coach Cas "Casores" van Andel built his roster to be meta-proof. Whether it was Wrecking Ball or Winston dive with Kiriko-Lucio, surprise Sigma and Baptiste-Illari/Zen, or Ramattra rush, there wasn’t a single composition Team Liquid couldn’t play.

In Stage 1, Team Liquid finished with a 5-2 match record in the regular season, but 1-2 in the playoffs, resulting in them missing the Champions Clash. In Stage 2, they once again finished with a 5-2 regular season record, but improved their playoff woes with a 2-1 match score and qualified for the Midseason Championship.

In Stage 3, everything finally clicked. Team Liquid finished the regular season with a perfect 7-0 record, and maintained their perfect path to victory by winning all three of their playoff matches — including the Regional Finals. Of the 41 maps played, Liquid finished with an impressive 31-10 record — the best of any team in North America.

As they enter the World Finals, Team Liquid will begin in the second round of the Upper Bracket thanks to securing the No. 1 seed from North America. Awaiting them in the first round will be either Team Falcons from Korea or VARREL from Japan; current projections have Liquid meeting Falcons as their first opponent.

Throughout the history of the esport, there have been many examples of teams with North American talent being successful. But almost always this was accomplished with mixed rosters, as seldom did teams composed of only North American players dominate the competition. You would have to go as far back as Team USA at the 2019 World Cup for an American team winning a major international competition.

The talent that Casores and Team Liquid have assembled represents the finest of the latest generation of American players. Now at the 2025 World Finals, Team Liquid is looking to lead the way for achievements by a solely American roster on the international stage.