Team Liquid’s Kamil “siuhy” Szkaradek era is back on track, but can it get through The MongolZ in the IEM Melbourne playoffs?
Ahead of PGL Bucharest, Team Liquid shook up its roster with the addition of MOUZ star siuhy. That initially seemed like a terrible decision, as the team finished last in PGL Bucharest. That made it quite easy to doubt the team’s future, but it’s looked significantly better in IEM Melbourne.
The Counter-Strike calendar is a brutal one though, and the team is facing a constant churn of high-level competition. The next challenge for Team Liquid is facing The MongolZ in the IEM Melbourne playoffs.
WINNER TO PLAYOFFS! Liquid vs NAVI – HIGHLIGHTS – IEM Melbourne 2025 | CS2
Team Liquid and The MongolZ will play in a best-of-three match on April 25, 2025 as part of the IEM Melbourne playoffs. The match is a quarterfinal playoffs match, with the winner advancing to the semifinals. Team Vitality awaits the winner, as Vitality secured a direct semifinals berth with a perfect group stage run.
IEM Melbourne hasn’t been easy tournament for Team Liquid, but it has still been a successful one, Liquid fought its way into the playoffs with wins over Virtus.pro, MIBR, and NaVi. Its win over NaVi was particularly good, as it comfortably took two of the three maps.
Team Liquid still has siuhy on its roster on a trial basis:
Team Liquid hasn’t been particularly strong on any map in 2025 so far, but has been generally decent on most. The key exceptions are Nuke and Mirage. The team is 3-6 on Nuke and just 1-5 on Mirage. siuhy may provide some extra firepower on those maps, but the sample size for the team is still limited.
The MongolZ also entered IEM Melbourne after an underwhelming display at PGL Bucharest. Like Liquid, it has bounced back in impressive fashion. The squad got into the playoffs by beating Complexity Gaming and FaZe Clan. It fell short in upper bracket finals of its group, losing to MOUZ, but still earned a quarterfinals berth.
The team brings its longstanding roster to the IEM Melbourne playoffs:
The MongolZ has been avoiding Train so far, but has a 58% win rate or better on all the other active duty maps. Except for Nuke, that is. The MongolZ’s one weak map has been Nuke, where it’s 3-5 over the last six months.
WINNER TO SEMI-FINAL! MOUZ vs TheMongolz – HIGHLIGHTS – IEM Melbourne 2025 | CS2
The MongolZ has been getting the better of Team Liquid in Counter-Strike 2. The teams have played three times, all of which came in 2025. The MongolZ won all three matches, with Liquid only taking one map of seven.
The MongolZ is the betting favorite for this match in the IEM Melbourne playoffs. Its moneyline stands at 1.6, while Liquid is at 2.32. The bookies aren’t writing off Team Liquid by any means, but they’re also confident in the Mongolian squad being able to get the win.
The MongolZ will likely defeat Team Liquid in the IEM Melbourne playoffs. Though the Team Liquid roster with siuhy could gel in the coming weeks, it’d still be hard to pick them over The MongolZ.
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