Liquid scoop $1 million Intel Grand Slam Season 2 prize

7/7/2019 - 21:15

Liquid will collect a cheque for $1 million from season two of the Intel Grand Slam (IGS) after lifting the ESL One Cologne trophy.

The North American giants took down Vitality in a four-map series at the Lanxess Arena to pick up their fourth IGS-eligible title of the season, after IEM Sydney, DreamHack Masters Dallas and the ESL Pro League Season 9 Finals.

Liquid locked the prize five events into the season, which lasted just 144 days. By comparison, the first IGS season had 15 events and lasted 523 days.

Even more impressive is the fact that Liquid won the season inside 63 days following a perfect streak that began on May 5, when they lifted the IEM Sydney trophy. Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella's troops beat four different teams in finals en route to the grand prize, besting fnatic in Sydney, ENCE in Dallas, G2 in Montpellier and Vitality in Cologne.

Liquid's players won gold bars with their nickname on them

In case Liquid lost the final in Cologne, they would still have six more chances to win the Intel Grand Slam, which rewards the team that wins four eligible tournaments inside a window of ten consecutive events. Season 1 champions Astralis were the only other team to win an IGS trophy this season after coming out on top of the IEM Katowice Major.

Contacted by HLTV.org, ESL declined to comment on whether the Intel Grand Slam will return for a third edition. In less than two weeks, ESL will host IEM Chicago, an event that was supposed to count towards season 2.

Below you can find the events that comprised the second edition of the Intel Grand Slam and their respective champions:

IEM Katowice 2019 - Astralis
IEM Sydney 2019 - Liquid
DreamHack Masters Dallas 2019 - Liquid
ESL Pro League Season 9 Finals - Liquid
ESL One Cologne 2019 - Liquid

2019-07-07 21:15

60 replies

FASTER THAN BLASTRALIS LUL

2019-07-07 21:16

37 replies

WHAT A SHITTY ERA R.I.P CS:GO

2019-07-07 21:17

35 replies

2019-07-07 21:18

29 replies

LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOO

28 replies

rip astralis era ! welcome to liquid era

2019-07-07 21:20

27 replies

No Liquid era they are just the only team playing like they should.

2019-07-07 21:23

25 replies

Exactly... All teams have problems at the moment. Even Astralis lost confidence. TL will choke at the Major. Mark my words.

2019-07-07 21:30

10 replies

Another fluke team will win the major

2019-07-07 21:31

9 replies

STEWIE HATERS CRYING LULW

2019-07-07 21:32

4 replies

LET'S GO LIQUID

2019-07-07 21:47

2 replies

stopped supporting north wtf?

2019-07-07 22:11

CUT! You aren't supposed to break character in an HLTV thread! Now everyone will think you're a Liquid Fan!

2019-07-09 18:12

LETSSSS GOOOOOOOO

2019-07-07 23:41

Mousesports not a fluke??

3 replies

Mouz in 2k19 LMAO

Mouz haters in 2k19 OMEGALUL

2019-07-07 22:55

1 reply

Mouz lovers in 2k19 OMEGALUL

2019-07-08 12:38

You could argue it was the same during Astralis era.

11 replies

No, astralis actually played good.

Yeah and Liquid plays badly right? That's why they won IGS S2 with four straight tournament wins, beating like every top team in a BO3 in those tournaments

2019-07-07 21:33

6 replies

I said liquid plays like every team should play, but they are not even close to the level astralis had

2019-07-07 21:34

5 replies

Tactics wise, probably not. Skill wise? They are way better, at least IMO. They lost just one matchup during their whole IGS run, I think that says a lot

2019-07-07 21:38

I mean, I think Liquid was skill-wise better than Astralis, even during their era. That's what was fascinating about the TACO Liquid lineup.

2019-07-09 18:14

True, but with stewie now they're even more skilled, TACO isn't a shit player, but stewie is better skill-wise

2019-07-09 23:27

you don’t need to be the best team of all time to have an era

2019-07-07 21:39

Typical delusional Liquid hater comment. In that same vein, Astralis was the only one playing like they should last year while every other team were having problems. I LOL

Cuz liquid didn’t play good apparently?

#151

What are you saying they are playing above that level and you’ll see Astralis has to stop making excuses and same goes for Magisk “I still think 2019 can be out year” fucking delusional botstralis fans

SALTY EURO SPOTTED

2019-07-07 23:13

vitality are pretty solid for a new team tbh, sadly zywoo is too good for them (not thinking he'll be better with different team) the other must step up a bit more. astralis will step back to a good form. Liquid are definitely the best team ATM.

2019-07-08 09:53

I think it ended back at EPL S9 Finals. This is the start of the possibly Liquid Era, but they have to solidify it with a Major win, kinda the reverse of what Astralis did.

2019-07-09 18:10

Expected from Swedenl ol

2019-07-07 22:03

Bro are you dumb csgo is in its prime it hasn’t been this competitive in years

2019-07-08 06:29

Name one sweeden player thats relevent in 2019 other than krimz xdddd.

2019-07-09 04:09

Congratulations Team Liquid! Very well done. Even though I feel bad for my boys at Vitality, you all played amazing. EliGE 3 MVP's in a row, what a great player!

8 replies

and everyone still sucking off shox niko cold s1mple kenny and so on when you have so much talent in liquid

2019-07-07 21:24

s1mple> all

2019-07-07 21:26

we all saw that

who knows at the end of 2019=_=

2019-07-07 21:28

S1mple>zywoo>all but agree with the rest, elige and twistzz>chocko

2019-07-07 22:01

Not saying that s1mple and zywoo are not the best, but people often forget about players in liquid

2019-07-07 22:19

I think it's just because they choked so much last year and now all of a sudden they win grand slam in 2 months, takes some time for the idea to sink in But they always had mad skill

2019-07-07 22:35

you killed #1 wtf

MIRAA executed them instantly

2019-07-07 21:21

miraa savage, brother of famous TV series host Adam Savage of Mythbusters

Lol

Ez money

EU cs is so bad lmao

liquid not choking anymore ez

Liquid is a team filled with talent. Each and everyone of them can be a star player in any team. But the funniest thing I still can't take is that Adren was the key for them. Adren! LoL

adreN deepened their map pool and added more tactical stuff than Zews did. Stewie is also so much better than TACO in every way at being an entry. Now with 6 people that are of NA culture and speak native English, we’re all good to go.

2019-07-08 00:09

True. They're just full of talent. And it helped that simple did some stupid shit like trying to knife nitro and they ended up loosing the map. Lol

2019-07-09 08:20

Na 1 grand slam, eu 1 grand slam... the two regions are equals

NA 1 major, EU - rest of the majors tho

2019-07-09 23:30

2019-07-08 10:33

Wow

good job liquid

Congratulations!

Congratz TL, well deserved.

Better than blastralis

Bait

epic

WOW

new era

Amazing job bois!

nice

Let's fucking go baby

No more “NA CS LUL” More like “UK CS LUL”

haha m8 even when cloud9 won major some jokes never ends = D

UK CS LUL

its still "NA CS LUL" 2 teams at top 20. still nice to see liquid coming out of that LUL scene and be able to play good cs.

7 replies

I mean, Finland isn't really a good case either, it's been like 10 years since there was a good Finnish team. Granted I like ENCE a lot, but man your scene was only ever ok, even in 1.6.

2019-07-07 21:37

ou we did talk about Finnish scene? but yeah u are right on that but still last time I checked Finland was part of eu so if we dont talk usa and canada scenes just na then dont bring out individual countries from eu. and i think even comparing Finland and usa scenes is ridiculous, already in new york is more people than the whole of Finland, and i see it just part of eu just like california or texas is part of usa or canada and usa is part of na.. but still memes dont go a way easily and only 2 team at top20 is not helping at least na have #1 team at the moment so be happy.

2019-07-07 22:08

I mean the whole of NA is like half of EU combined, and that's not including the CIS region which many European teams can play against. I've had this discussion, there's a lot of issues for NA that Europeans don't understand, such as the massive divide between West/East coast (literally 100+ ping distance). Of course Europe is better than NA, look at the general population concentration where all of the teams reside vs. NA. The fact that a #1 team even came out of our scene is kind of a shock, frankly.

2019-07-08 01:12

European population (not including cis) 741 million NA population 579

2019-07-08 01:40

I was not being literal, but nearly 200 million population difference is not a small offset. Also most European teams are more centralized, which isn't the same for NA teams. Most of the middle of the US, and large parts of Canada, don't play CS the same as the West and East. How many time zones separate the European teams? I'll give you a hint: 1 for the VAST majority. We have fucking 4 separating the 2 main player bases.

2019-07-08 02:27

also consider that NA is a big-time console market

2019-07-08 04:18

And that his numbers include Mexico, which is 120 million people, and almost none of whom play CSGO.

2019-07-08 05:04

Still haven't won a BLAST Pro Series tho.

fuck that rigged ass tournament

should have thrown against MiBR and play them in Miami instead of FaZe

2019-07-07 21:27

they were stupid. nitro shouldn't have defused that bomb sneaky beaky like...

2019-07-08 00:40

sick

Blastralis lol

Remember when blastralis said they were gonna win ecs and cologne lmao such a shit team lol.

2019-07-08 01:32

CLOUD 9 FAN

2019-07-10 23:42

NA CS TOP 1 PogU

So faking ez

Liquid era

Flukequid

2019-07-07 21:25

stewie1billion

Let's goooo

EZ MONEY

SO BORING

Expected

Well played

Liquid aka the least likeable top 1 ever

more so than astralis tbh... cant stand fucking stewie so cocky

you realize stewie does it for the content

so he acts like a total douche for "the content" stfu thats who he is no one puts on a bad face for the camera its literally the other way around.... lmfao

2019-07-07 21:40

lol y u so mad, people hate it when people bm n shit i think its so funny

2019-07-08 01:41

#1 HLTV, 5 big events in a row and $1.3M added to the bank, cry is free bois

get a new line loser.... your name is fking pathetic, we can all tell you are a baby because of it... XDXDXDXD go eat what mommy made you for lunch boy XDXDXDXDXDXDXDXD

Keep crying, your tears quenched my thirst

2019-07-07 22:36

flag checks out

Flair checks out

yes

Yes, ez !

gratz

WAY TOO EASY FOR NA! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to keep rotting away in my basement.

lul

2019-07-07 23:45

Congrats

LETS GO LIQUID!

SO EZ

NICE

NA can be proud, sick team

Hltv confirmed G2 won season 3

They still need a Major to make em one of the great.

Fairytale is real... The rise began earlier this yr, dominance is exerted.. Major win to top it off..

2019-07-07 21:52

gj Liquid

Just a random silly major to the 'used to be called #1'. Whatever, Liquid will clinch StarLadder surely, too easy for NA. #NAIsTop1 #IntelGrandSlam #Let'sGoLiquid

do they get extra 1million?

Yes.

PogU

63 days unbelievable

2019-07-07 21:19

Proud of you Liquid you have been doing so great!

Gg apex and nbk One thought Vitality would revolve around them But both of them found it hard to enter double digits in the whole series And these guys have ego problems in french cs .. Well played zywoo ... I didn't see him bait even a single person in this tournament ..

holy shit

first grand slam — 15 tournament — Liquid 0 wins second gran slam — 5 tournaments — Liquid 4 wins TACO it's problem

deserved

EZ CLAP FOR THE BEST TEAM IN THE WORLD!!

2019-07-07 21:22

Ggwp

ez money - ez life

sickkk

Is that pure gold bar?

I think those gold bars cost 1m

2019-07-07 21:29

Yep, 1bar=250k

They're 6 including the coach, i think it might be 166k per bar

Wtf? Absolutely bullshit xD They are gonna get cash prize.

u aint them u dunno

Well it's clearly written in the article that they'll get a cheque for 1m

2019-07-07 21:35

They can just trade bar for money if they want(obv they want)

2019-07-07 21:49

It's just a gold color plated bar buddy :D They're already earning so much i don't think they'll sell it.

2019-07-07 21:53

No lol

no ofc, painted aluminum. one gold bar of that size would weight ~20kg

2019-07-08 15:25

Easy as fuck. Maybe astralis shouldn’t dodge so many fucking tournaments

maybe they're millionaires that has already achieved more than anyone else in CS and don't really care what you think

GG Liquid major is gonna be intresting.

congrats

EZ TL

The need to win major to start Liquid era

Major is just another big tournament.

NA up people were waiting for this, for forever

lmao stop hating Liquid , they're currently the best team in the world and they proved it during several tournaments. It's not luck , it's pure skill - they're simply that good.

Maybe it's also the toxic fans, just saying...

2019-07-08 09:14

ERA ERA ERA

BEST TEAM IN THE WORLD AT THE MOMENT!

GRATZ LIQUID

expected tbh

Congrats!

ZywOo MVP, even with such a loss he got it, what a God.

Wow, that was quick! Liquid era>Astralis era More dominant, exciting playstyle

This has to be a bait or you have some mental issue for sure.They are not even better than SK 2016-2017

2019-07-07 21:36

2019-07-07 23:04

fallen himself implied teams are better now than back then. keep being delusional or ignorant LUL

2019-07-08 00:49

I’m bored of liquid

3-1 just as i told ya csgo keeps being boring with no real competition nip, fnatic, luminosity/sk, astralis, now liquid

I miss good BO5 finals... SK x VP (Epicenter) Fnatic x FaZe (Katowice) Faze x NiP (Oakland)

2019-07-08 00:41

I miss hltv.org/matches/2302648/luminosity-vs-g..

2019-07-08 17:45

Gz liquid, deserved win, undisputed number 1 atm.

No more choking Ez for the NA nibbas

I'm so fucking happy for them!! EZ4Liquid

Great Liquid kicking the arrogant French Vitality

Congrats. gg

LETSS GOOOO NACS#1

We, as EU, have to salute our new NA overlords... wp Liquid, well deserved

GGEZ

LETSGO

Gg, deserved.

I already see a comment where someone is now "bored" of Liquid. Give me a break. The same thing was said for Astralis. GG Liquid!!!!! WELL FUCKING DESERVED!!!!!

Get use to it, the haters will never rest... Also yes, no doubt: insane performance from TL, well done!

Astralis stayed on top for more than a year. I highly doubt Liquid will stay on top for that long, sooner or later other teams will catch up.

2019-07-07 23:49

Liquid are sure to get the same treatment as Astralis. They're not nearly as successful yet, but they play damn near as "clean" as peak Astralis did. Of course people will call them boring or spread nonsense hate. Enjoy the time at the top liquid, GG and well done.

2019-07-08 00:11

finally the team got what they deserved since s1mple Hiko era

Deserved Liquid ERA

2019-07-07 21:42

From a meme team, that was considered to never be able to win a t1 event, to scooping the Intel grand slam... Impressive to say the least. This is why you NEVER give up and must keep being motivated at ALL times. Very solid example by Liquid set for all other teams, take notes. EZ Clap

Who won the MVP?

2019-07-07 21:45

Knowing hltv s1mple probably

2019-07-07 21:48

Zywoo i guess

Yup confirmed

2019-07-07 21:56

Best CS:GO team in the wirld. And all so young. This may be a dynasty. Been coming for a long while. Jusr needed that last ingredient.

2019-07-07 21:51

Who the MVP tournament

NA CS LOL

Liquid ERA . at least is satisfactory to see liquid playing . astralis was boring..

2019-07-07 21:58

+11111 damn

2019-07-08 00:18

holy shi...... 1 MILLION DOLLARS PLAYING FPS?!!

2019-07-07 22:06

No. 1 million dollars for winning the Intel Grand Slam.

2019-07-08 00:05

Liquid is great atm. Fun to watch. A more sympathizable team than astralis. Also i feel really good for nitro

2019-07-07 22:09

2019-07-07 22:30

Thanks

2019-07-07 22:43

np :) It's true :D

2019-07-08 09:57

No back to back majors no era. No three majors in total no legend. Truly a long way to even begin to talk of an era

2019-07-07 22:10

well you cant really fault them for not winning a major when the last one was 4 months ago and still under the astralis era

2019-07-07 22:17

more money for NA

2019-07-07 22:16

liquid are hot atm ;)

Lol esl were like "fuck, never spent $1000000 that fast"

2019-07-07 22:23

Congrats! By far the best team in the world this year.

2019-07-07 22:33

Probably the richest e-sport org out there, their dota2 team also makes a lot of money

Indeed bro.

2019-07-08 00:17

Gz Liquid

2019-07-07 22:54

"MAKE NACS GREAT (not again)" And they did it!

2019-07-07 23:15

stewie2k bout to leave liquid and join a Brazilian team

2019-07-07 23:20

after the major

2019-07-08 00:14

nitr0 has to be feeling on top of the world, all the ups and downs, roster changes, choking matches away, and it all pays off for him in the end, has the best talent in the world around him and has IGLed his way into NA relevance. You really love to see it. #LETSGOLIQUID

Not just NA relevance but NA dominance

Agreed +1

2019-07-08 00:15

People have the right to love or to hate Team Liquid... Think everyone's opinion is valid, haters excluded. However, if people stay honest and get down to FACTS, just hwve in mind that since adreN picked/joined up this Team, approximately 6 months ago, they reached 2 million dollars in prize money... If this is not enough to prove themselves, idk what is...

2019-07-07 23:56

former liquid player into a mythic streamer to a coach of an IGS winning team. well done adreN!

2019-07-08 03:12

2019-07-08 00:06

will stewie get his 2. major? find out in the next episode of dragon ball gt

Easy for the best region in all of csgo North America Wow to do it in only 2 months when it took Astralis like 18 months just shows how NA are on another level from the rest of the world !

2019-07-08 00:10

It didn't take Astralis 18 months though, what are you on about? On top of this, 1 NA team being above everyone else doesnt put the scene as a whole above the rest. EU still has a lot more teams in the top 10, and most of all the top players in cs are EU.

2019-07-08 00:16

RIP Astralis

Let's go!! :D <3

1 mill... Man... I'm working in the wrong field

its never too late to head back to school men))

2019-07-08 00:53

Wanna start a CSGO team?!

2019-07-08 01:17

These young men are very lucky, ngl I envy them

2019-07-08 04:34

And it's downward from here on

2019-07-08 06:17

the adren effect

2019-07-08 10:45

The same excuses as when Astralis was dominating... That there are no other proper teams. That's bs. They just play great cs. But imo Astralis was better tactic wise.

2019-07-08 12:45

ez money

2019-07-08 15:43

NA true noobs behind Europe and even Brazil are now the best in the world. Deserved

2019-07-08 16:47