CSGO: ENCE Replace Liquid at IEM Beijing
| Tags: CS2
| Author Caroline Rutledge
ENCE will make the trip to Beijing in Team Liquid's place.
ENCE will replace Team Liquid at IEM Beijing next month the IEM organizer announced today. In Team Liquid’s own announcement video, CS:GO star Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski cited a busy schedule as a motivator for their decision to drop out of the event.
As we come to the end of an extremely busy year, we have decided to make a concession to the schedule and miss IEM Beijing. We offer our sincere apologies to the fans who wanted to see us play, but we hope to be back at full strength soon #LetsGoLiquid pic.twitter.com/aJkKlen6g9
— Team Liquid (@TeamLiquid) October 22, 2019
Team Liquid have attended sixteen LAN tournaments in 2019, all the while lifting the trophy at seven of them. They are currently competing in the ECS online season, having taken down ex-Singularity in dominating fashion on Monday. Their next match is set to take place today, where they will face off against INTZ in the ECS Season 8 Week Four semi-finals.
Liquid have a large number of events scheduled for the next few months, as they will appear at BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen, the ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals, and the BLAST Pro Series Global Final. All three events will take place in Europe, requiring a large amount of travel for the North American squad. Jablonowski addressed the number of travel days in the organization’s video, stating that TL is one of the most traveled in the CS:GO scene.
ENCE Will Take the Reigns
Taking Liquid’s place at IEM Beijing is Finnish squad ENCE, whose last appearance saw them exit DreamHack Masters Malmö in 9-12th place. The team has struggled since in-game leader Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen was removed from the active lineup following the StarLadder Berlin Major in September.
IEM Beijing is a $250,000 event with multiple top teams in attendance, including world number one Astralis and ESL One New York champions Evil Geniuses. The event is part of the ESL Pro Tour, offering points towards the participating teams’ journeys to the upcoming Masters Championships level events. The winner will also receive a point towards the third season of the Intel Grand Slam. The event is slated to begin on November 7th, and will run until November 10th.
Image VIA: ESL
Caroline is an esports journalist focusing on CS:GO. Starting out as a casual CS:GO fan, her interest quickly turned into a passion as she spent years studying the game. She has put that knowledge to use as a journalist, now writing about professional CS:GO for multiple websites including TheGamer.