Liquid well on their way to a fourth consecutive StarLadder title

posted by Abelle,

Three-time StarLadder champions Team Liquid are the first squad through to the playoffs of the Starladder | i-League Invitational #4 Minor after a dominant pair of matches in the GSL group stage. .@TeamLiquid advance to the semifinals of #InvitationalS4#dota2 #dotasltv In the first day of the group stage within SL i-League Invitational Team Liquid has proved to be stronger in two clashes, advancing to the PlayoffsRead more: https://t.co/TXOZ324Wkv pic.twitter.com/dTRbkANjGA— StarLadder Dota 2 (@dotasltv) February 1, 2018

Team Liquid have won every StarLadder i-League event that they've attended with their current roster. The first event in their StarLadder streak was Starladder | i-League StarSeries Season 3 which took place in early 2017, shortly after Maroun 'Gh' Merhej officially joined the team. The next two StarLadder events were "Invitationals" in May and October 2017.

Now, Liquid have won their pair of best-of-three matches and guaranteed themselves a share of the Qualifying Points from the latest StarLadder Minor, and increased the odds of a fourth consecutive title.

Their first opponent today were

Infamous. The South American squad took a slight early lead thanks to an 11-2 kill score in their favour, but Liquid bounced back quickly and took the first game.

In the second game of the series, the fast-paced Liquid early game was in full effect and this time InFamous struggled to counter-play. Ivan 'MinD_ContRoL' Borislavov's Tiny, already very mobile with an early Blink Dagger and Shadow Blade, was even more of a terror with GH's Io backing him up. Liquid ended the series with a quick 24-minute Game 2 victory.

Next up were

PSG.LGD, who proved to be a much tougher opponent. Yao 'Somnus' Lu's Storm Spirit tried his best to put his team on his back in Game 1, but Liquid managed to edge out a win after an intense 42-minute battle.

Liquid busted out a variety of specialty heroes for Game 2 - GH on Io, KuroKy on Rubick and Matumbaman on Lycan. They got off to such a fast start that LGD only had time to take one tower before they lost the second game.

With these two wins, Liquid have come out on top of Group A and secured themselves a spot in the playoffs on Sunday. They'll sit out the next two days, waiting to see which three other teams make it through to face them.