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Team Liquid is a multi-regional professional esports organization based in the Netherlands that was founded in 2000. They signed their first professional players with the release of .
In 2012, Team Liquid acquired a North American Dota 2 team, marking their first venture into multi-genre management. 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. Their European Dota 2 squad won The International 2017, which had one of the largest prize pools for any esports tournament in history. Team Liquid's League of Legends team has won five LCS titles, and their Counter-Strike Global Offensive team was awarded the Intel Grand Slam prize in 2019 after winning four tournaments in just 63 days. Team Liquid also has Rainbow Six Siege, Free Fire and female Valorant teams in Brazil, rosters in Indonesia and the Philippines and chess grandmasters Fabiano Caruana, Magnus Carlsen and R Praggnanandhaa representing the organization.
Although Team Liquid was primarily known as 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 covering Dota 2 news. On December 8, 2012, Liquid expanded their esports franchise into multiple games for the first time, with the recruitment of a North American Dota 2 team.
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.
On September 27, 2016, Team Liquid sold its controlling interest to aXiomatic Gaming, an investment group including Golden State Warriors co-owner Peter Guber, entrepreneur Ted Leonsis, motivational speaker Tony Robbins, basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson, and AOL co-founder Steve Case.
On December 16, 2017, Team Liquid disbanded their Halo roster.
In 2020, the organization introduced Blue, an anthropomorphic horse, as its mascot. Blue has been featured in the organization's merchandising campaigns and collaborations.
Other investors include Los Angeles Dodgers executives Lon Rosen and Tucker Kain, Golden State Warriors executives Rick Welts and Kirk Lacob, the Washington Nationals owners at Lerner Enterprises, Chicago Cubs president of business operations Crane Kenney, Donn Davis, co-founder of Revolution LLC and managing partner of Revolution Growth, Zach Leonsis, VP and general manager of Monumental Sports Network, Mark Ein, founder and owner of the Washington Kastles and Washington Justice, and former NFL player Dhani Jones.
It was announced that Victor Goossens and Steve Arhancet would continue their roles as co-CEOs of Team Liquid after the acquisition.
In December 2021, five players signed by Team Liquid became co-owners: basketball player Aerial Powers, amateur Super Smash Bros. player (and actor) Asa Butterfield, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player EliGE, Super Smash Bros. player Hungrybox, and poker streamer and competitor Lex Veldhuis.
In January 2022, Team Liquid signed the World of Warcraft guild Limit, making Limit's guild leader and team captain Max "Maximum" Smith a co-owner.
In May 2024, it was announced that Team Liquid was a member of the Esports World Cup Foundation Club Support Program, funded by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund. Later that same month, Team Liquid would sign two Mobile Legends: Bang Bang rosters in the form of AURA Esports and ECHO (renamed to Liquid AURA and Liquid ECHO, then to Team Liquid Indonesia and Team Liquid Philippines respectively), after they acquired STUN.GG, who owned both teams.
On May 9, 2025, Team Liquid acquired EA Sports FC organization Team Gullit, owned by former Dutch football player and manager Ruud Gullit. Liquid and Gullit were previously involved in a partnership during the 2024 Esports World Cup.
With the arrival of StarCraft II, Team Liquid announced plans to become an active professional esports team. Shortly after, sponsorship by The Little App Factory was announced, 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. The team created a dedicated news site separate from the more community oriented site, announced and released on May 10, 2011. Team Liquid - Professional StarCraft 2 Team - TeamLiquidPro: Home Sweet Home May 11, 2011
On August 13, 2012, three players traveled to Korea in order to live in the OGS training house and compete in GOM Player Global StarCraft II League (GSL).
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.
At the end of 2023, Kim "Cure" Doh-wook and Clément "Clem" Desplanches reached the semifinals of ESL SC2 Masters: Winter 2023 Finals, at Dreamhack Atlanta. Cure lost to Dark 3-1 while Clem defeated Serral 3-1 and reached the finals. In the grand final, Clem competed against Dark and beat him 4-1.
At the start of 2024, Kim "Cure" Doh-wook was eliminated in the Round of 8 of Master's Coliseum 7, losing 3-4 against Solar.
In February 2024, Clément "Clem" Desplanches reached the Quarterfinals in IEM Katowice 2024 but lost 3-0 against Serral.
In February 2024, Kim "Cure" Doh-wook reached the Semifinals in IEM Katowice 2024 but lost 3-0 against Maru.
Clément "Clem" Desplanches has assured his direct spot in the Esports World Cup 2024 in Riyadh by winning SC2 Masters Winter 2023.
Kim "Cure" Doh-wook has assured his direct spot in the Esports World Cup 2024 in Riyadh by reaching top 4 at IEM Katowice 2024.
Both Clément "Clem" Desplanches and Kim "Cure" Doh-wook stopped in the Knockout Round 3 of ESL SC2 Masters: Spring 2024. Clem lost 3-0 to HerO while Cure lost 3-2 to Shin.
Team Liquid was very successful in 2018 and 2019, winning four LCS splits in a row. In the 2018 NA LCS season, Liquid had a roster of Impact, Xmithie, Pobelter, Doublelift, and Olleh. At the 2018 League of Legends World Championship, Liquid went 3–3 in groups and failed to advance. In the 2019 LCS season, Liquid replaced Pobelter with Jensen and Olleh with CoreJJ. Liquid failed to make it out of groups at the 2019 League of Legends World Championship, however, as their 3–3 record was insufficient to advance. In 2020, Broxah joined the team as jungler, replacing Xmithie. The 2020 Spring Split went very poorly for Liquid; they finished ninth place out of ten. Doublelift was benched due to motivation issues and replaced by Academy ADC Tactical, and Doublelift was eventually traded to Team SoloMid for the summer split, with Tactical promoted to starter. Liquid finished third that summer split and made it to 2020 League of Legends World Championship, but again their 3–3 record was insufficient to advance to the quarterfinals. In 2021, Santorin replaced Broxah as jungler, and LEC import Alphari replaced Impact as top laner. The team once again got a 3–3 record in groups at the 2021 League of Legends World Championship; this qualified them for a tiebreaker match with Gen.G, but Liquid lost and failed to advance.
The 2022 season saw a major shake-up of the roster, as the Honda sponsorship allowed the creation of a "super team" of Bwipo, Santorin, Bjergsen, Hans Sama, and CoreJJ. Despite high expectations and finishing third place in the regular season of the summer split, Liquid narrowly failed to earn a Worlds slot in the playoffs, a disappointment that caused a major controversy. [Sources] Team Liquid Strongly Considering Yeon & Eyla to LCS for 2023 Hans Sama left the team at the end of the season. On 26 September 2022 they also released Guilhoto from the head coach position.
On October 9, 2015, it was announced that Liquid would once again be fielding a Dota team, after being absence from the competitive DotA scene for more than a year.
On October 21, 2016, it was announced that Liquid would be fielding a professional Civilization VI team, captained by former world champion Civilization player MrGameTheory.
On August 7, 2020, Team Liquid announced their entrance to the Valorant esports scene by signing the fish123 roster, soulcas, Kryptix, L1NK, ec1s. Alongside these four players, they also added ScreaM as the fifth player. On February 24, 2021, Team Liquid parted ways with ec1s and added Jamppi into the roster. On April 23, 2021, Team Liquid announced changes to their Dota 2 roster on Twitter. Samuel "Boxi" Swann is taking a break from Dota to spend more time with his family. He will be replaced by Saeed Samail "SumaiL" Hassan. On December 25, 2021, analyst and translator Leon "Arthur" Lee interviewed Team Liquid coach, William "Blitz" Lee, who talked about the formation of the team, MATUMBAMAN and Zai, captain iNSaNiA and opponents at the Dota Pro Circuit. On 22 September 2022, they were announced as one of the 10 partner teams for the Valorant EMEA league.
On May 5, 2023, Team Liquid became the first Dota 2 team to score the minimum number of DPC points and qualify for The International 2023.
On November 21, 2023, Team Liquid announced its departure from Rocket League.
In May 2024, Team Liquid announced it was officially re-entering competitive Apex Legends play after signing the orgless team "Legacy" ahead of the 2024 Apex Legends Global Series (ALGS) Split 1 Playoffs LAN. It marked Team Liquid's return to the Apex scene, after leaving in December 2022. The roster is made up of Saul "YanYa" Ocampo, Luis Enrique "Neazul" Ramos Suarez, Alexis "Jaguares" Martinez, and Steven "Pistillo" Rojas as the coach.
On February 13, 2025, Team Liquid entered chess by signing American grandmaster Fabiano Caruana. The next day, on February 14, Liquid signed the Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen. On June 28, Liquid announced the signing of Indian grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa. These players will represent Liquid during the Champions Chess Tour 2025.
In June 2022, Liquid partnered with Honda as a title sponsor for their League of Legends team, with the team renamed "Team Liquid Honda". “Team Liquid Honda” League of Legends Team Naming Rights Deal Signals Expanded Relationship and Evolution of Honda’s Commitment to Gaming On 19 May 2025, Liquid announced that their partnership with Honda had ended due to a social media controversy where Rainbow Six player Lucas "DiasLucasBr" Dias posted an image of an Nuclear weapon on Twitter, referencing the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, after losing to Japanese team CAG Osaka. Although DiasLucasBr deleted the post and apologized to the CAG Osaka members, American Honda Motor Company issued a statement terminating the sponsorship after "deeming the conduct to be incompatible with Honda corporate values and unacceptable".
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 chief executive officer and primarily manages the League of Legends team.
Ownership
aXiomatic is an entertainment and sports management company. Investors for the group include Peter Guber, Tony Robbins, Magic Johnson, Ted Leonsis, Steve Case, and Eric Lefkofsky. The chief executive officer is Bruce Stein, the former chief executive officer and chief operating officer of Mattel Toys, Sony Interactive Entertainment and Kenner Products (Hasbro). On September 27, 2016, aXiomatic announced that it had acquired controlling interest of esports organization Team Liquid.
Websites
Main websites
Rosters
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 largest StarCraft: Brood War tournaments outside of South Korea. The first TSL sponsored by Razer USA 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. The tournament took place between March and May 2011. On April 25, 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.
Community events
Esports history
StarCraft and StarCraft II
The gaming clan "Liquid" was founded by Victor "Nazgul" Goossens near the end of 2000, after he decided 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 were handpicked by Goossens.
Smash Bros.
In March 2014, Team Liquid announced that it had picked up two Melee players: Ken Hoang, who is known as the "King of Smash" and KoreanDJ, who is known for being the first player to defeat Mew2King during his peak, 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 56 consecutive tournament win streak at MLG World Finals. On September 28, 2015, Team Liquid announced that KoreanDJ resigned from the organization and retired from competitive Smash, citing persistent hand and wrist pains.
League of Legends
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. In the playoffs they beat Counter Logic Gaming 3–0, before losing to Cloud9 3–2 and finishing in 3rd.
Other
One week after the Curse merger, it was announced that Team Liquid acquired a team that previously played under the title "Denial eSports".
Sponsors
On January 24, 2015, it was announced that HTC had become an official sponsor of Team Liquid.
Management
Victor "Nazgul" Goossens is a founding member, and currently co-owner and chief executive officer of Team Liquid. He originally competed in Brood War prior to forming Team Liquid.
Alienware Training Facility
In 2017 Team Liquid finished constructing its Alienware Training Facility in Los Angeles, which is designed to act as the training grounds for Team Liquid's CS:GO and League of Legends teams, as well as their esports headquarters. The facility houses non-players such as owner Steve "LiQuiD112" Arhancet and 1UP Studios, Team Liquid's in-house production studio, so that all departments of Team Liquid could work together. Team Liquid's sponsor Alienware supplied all the PC's to the Alienware Training Facility.
See also
External links
Categories: Www.teamliquidpro.com Official Website, 2000 Establishments In The Netherlands, American Internet Groups, Apex Legends Teams, Counter-strike Teams, Defunct And Inactive Overwatch Teams, Dota Teams, Dutch Sport Websites, Esports Teams Based In The Netherlands, Esports Teams Established In 2000, Fighting Game Player Sponsors, Hearthstone Teams, Heroes Of The Storm Teams, Internet Properties Established In 2000, League Championship Series Teams, Starcraft Teams, Super Smash Bros. Player Sponsors, Team Razer, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege Teams, Valorant Teams
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