True Sight: The International 2019 shows OG, Liquid in a new way

By Steven Rondina

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Jan 28, 2020

Reading time: 2 min

Valve premiered True Sight: The International 2019 Finals in Berlin, Germany. The documentary that gives fans a deeper look at the grand finals between OG and Team Liquid is now available to watch on YouTube.

True Sight: The International 2019 Finals highlighted some of the struggles and drama that was lost to fans who watched the event on Twitch. It featured footage from both backstage team meetings and conversations between the players in the booths.

There’s a lot of interesting revelations that can be found therein, and fans will likely find much intrigue within. Additionally, a special version of True Sight: The International 2019 Finals will be made available on January 29, featuring the two teams watching the movie together with their own additional commentary.

True Sight: TI9 Finals shows differences between TL and OG

A significant amount of time is dedicated to the two teams discussing draft strategies with one another. Hearing how they arrive at their decisions on which heroes to pick and ban is fun. More than in previous years, the two teams arrive at the same conclusions and accurately predict their opponents’ moves.

The two sides had very different moods during the series. Team Liquid seemed tense and at  times off-balance throughout the series, while OG plays loose and excited. Part of this can be chalked up to Liquid’s arduous lower bracket finals series against PSG.LGD, but a lot of it speaks to how friendly the OG squad are with one another.

One of the big teases of the trailer for True Sight: The International 2019 Finals was a line stating that Liquid offlaner Ivan Borislavov “MinD_ContRoL” Ivanov was “mentally done,” alongside a shot of him wiping his face. That wasn’t taken out of context. MinD_ContRoL looked frazzled at multiple points during the series, which ties into communication issues suffered from Team Liquid throughout the series.

w33 crestfallen after Team Liquid’s TI9 loss

Following the loss, Team Liquid is clearly saddened, but still upbeat all things considered. True Sight gives a fair bit of camera time to Aliwi “w33” Omar, who joined the long-standing Team Liquid lineup following the release of Lasse Aukusti “MATUMBAMAN” Urpalainen.

Immediately after the series, w33 reflects on how losing in the grand finals of The International 2019 felt the same as what he experienced in 2016. This is a reference to w33’s time with Digital Chaos, who made a shocking run to the grand finals of The International 2016 only to lose Wings Gaming in convincing fashion.

He states that he wasn’t even expecting to compete at The International 2019 due to his struggles during the season in South America with PaiN Gaming and Chaos Esports Club, and goes on to apologize to the team for his performance. Kuro “KuroKy” Salehi Takhasomi does the same, saying he should have done a better job leading the team.

During the live portion of the show, KuroKy discussed how the team was struggling with communication during the event and felt fatigued from their long run through The International 2019’s lower bracket.

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