Team Liquid players break into top 25 money earners in CSGO history

Team Liquid has defeated Vitality at ESL One Cologne 2019, and in doing so won the Intel Grand Slam Season 2 in record time. The prize money from those two wins has pushed the team’s players into the top 25 earners in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive history, according to esportsearnings.com.

The Intel Grand Slam awards a prize of $1,000,000 to the first team that wins four out of the 10 chosen events. Astralis were the winners in Season 1, winning four events between April and December 2018. Team Liquid have won the prize by winning four events in a row in a record 63 days. Victories at Intel Extreme Masters XIV Sydney, DreamHack Masters Dallas, ESL Pro League Season 9 and finally at ESL One Cologne secured the prize.

All five Team Liquid players are now on the list, with Jakey “Stewie2k” Yip and Keith “NAF” Markovic occupying the 10th and 11th slots with $900k and $800k respectively. Stewie2k is the sole American player in the top 10, buoyed by his combined successes with Liquid and at former team Cloud9.

Nick “Nitr0” Cannella appears at 13th on the list with a total of $775k. Just behind Nitr0 is Jonathan “ELiGE” Jablonowski in 15th place with $766k. Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken is the only member of the team to not feature in the top 20, instead appearing in 22nd place with $670k.

Astralis may have been knocked from their position as the best CS:GO team in the world, but their players sit as the top five on the overall earnings list. At the top of the list is Andreas “Xyp9x” Højsleth with a total of over $1.5 million. 

For much of 2018 Team Liquid sat in the shadow of the more dominant Astralis side. Even after Liquid secured the world number one ranking, some doubters were saying Astralis remained the team to beat. Now that Team Liquid have won a final that Astralis couldn’t even get to and accomplished Astralis’ Grand Slam feat in record time, they are truly the undisputed best team in the world.