What Does Liquid’s Nuke Ban Mean?

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Last week I wrote about the Liquid-Astralis matchup, and why Astralis seems to consistently have an edge over Liquid. There were quite a few reasons, but one of the major ones is their map pools.

Astralis has had an advantage across pretty much every map in the pool. They ban Cache, which is one of the higher win percentage maps in Liquid’s pool and have an advantage on pretty much every other map in the pool. The biggest hurdle for Liquid was their permaban.

Historically Liquid has banned out Train. It has been their permaban in every matchup and they’ve only played it three times on LAN. This meant that they had to play Astralis on Nuke, which isn’t a good strategy for any team in professional Counter Strike. I said in my article that Liquid needed to add another map to their repertoire if they wanted to make headway in this matchup, and it appears they did.

At the ESL Pro League Season 8 finals Liquid and Astralis faced off yet again in the grand finals. It was a best-of-five, most people were pretty confidant as to how the pick ban was going to go. But Liquid banned Nuke. Astralis then picked Train, Liquid picked Mirage, then Inferno, Dust2, and Overpass.

Liquid ended up winning the opening game of the best-of-five on Train. This came as a major surprise given it was their permaban just last week, but it ended up not making a difference. Astralis swept Liquid in the next three games and claimed the IEM Grand Slam.

Now, I was not terribly impressed with Liquid’s Train. It was certainly strong, especially seeing as how it was their permaban, but Astralis played uncharacteristically poor, and looked unprepared. I don’t know if this Train pick is going to be a trump card for Liquid, as Astralis is, at least in theory, a very good Train team.

The most impactful part of this Train performance is how it’s going to change their vetos in best-of-threes from now on. Astralis might be warier of Train now that Liquid has shown they can be dangerous. This means that Liquid can ban out Nuke and float Train. I can’t imagine Astralis is going to be picking Train against Liquid anytime soon, which means Liquid essentially gets a free pick in the first stage of their pick ban. They can pick whichever map they feel most comfortable on, which might be Train or Mirage.

Liquid doesn’t even have to play Train against Astralis for this addition to their map pool to be relevant. The threat of Train might be enough to give Liquid a little more room in the pick ban. This has added something else that Astralis must be wary of and has freed up Liquid’s first round ban to be used on Nuke.

Although, Liquid could still ban Nuke. If they think they have adequately scared Astralis with this Train pick, they might be able to leave it in the pool till the second round of bans, or even the decider. If they have dissuaded Astralis from picking Train, Liquid could ban Nuke and then first pick Mirage, and let Astralis pick whichever map from the pool they want, likely Inferno.

This addition to Liquid’s map pool could end up paying off in a major way, assuming they can win on the map consistently. It has the potential to flip the whole dynamic of this matchup and swing the balance at least a little more in their favor.

While it would be a stretch to call Liquid anything close to a favorite in this matchup, this new development makes it more likely for them to push a best-of-three to three maps, and I’d place a small bet on them on Train if they ended up playing again. Betting the over on rounds on Train is now something with value as well.

Ultimately, it’s not a game changer, so there isn’t much of a difference in how you should be betting. Although that could very well change after BLAST Pro Series Lisbon. So, make sure to keep an eye on this matchup, especially the pick bans. And look for bet makers who are going to overrate this performance, because I’m sure someone will.
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