Team Liquid Shuts Down Apex Legends Division

Team Liquid announced it’s exiting the Apex Legends esports scene and disbanded its Apex Legends Global Series (ALGS) roster on Thursday, December 15. As stated by the North American esports organization, Liquid decided to pull the plug on its Apex roster due to lack of support teams receive from the tournament organizers.

Team Liquid released a lengthy blog post on Thursday, unveiling the organization’s decision to leave the Apex Legends esports scene. In the statement, Team Liquid stated that it’s closing down its ALGS division due to the lack of support the teams receive from the ALGS organizers, including Respawn and EA.

“Today, we are officially announcing that Team Liquid will no longer be fielding a team in the Apex Legends Global Series. Though the writing has been on the wall—and on social media—we understand this is probably confusing given how well the team has performed, even after they lost Gildersons,” read the announcement.

“We’ll do our best to offer both an explanation to our community, and an apology to the roster.”

Team Liquid CEO, Steve “Liquid112” Arhancet also shared his thoughts on the situation and didn’t hold back when criticizing Respawn and EA. As stated by Arhancet, Liquid strives to only participate in games where the developers support the teams, which enables the organizations to support their players. That, as he believes, wasn’t the case.

“We are always going to be big fans of Apex Legends, of ALGS, and of our former players too. I can tell there’s a real love of Apex in the entire Team Liquid family, and so I wish that we could stay in the ALGS and make a long-term investment in our roster and the competitive scene.”

“But we strive to only participate in games where the developers support the teams, so the teams can support their players in turn. I’m hopeful that, one day, competitive Apex could follow that model and that we could return to the competition then.”

Although Arhancet noted that he hopes Liquid will return to the competitive Apex Legends scene, that will only happen when the organizers start supporting ALGS teams.

Team Liquid first entered Apex Legends esports in March 2019 and has remained involved in the scene ever since. Throughout the three years, Liquid has consistently competed in various Apex Legends tournaments, including ALGS events, FACEIT Pro Series, Oversight, and many more.

And even though Liquid have never won the ALGS Championship, Liquid was a major organization in ALGS, investing heavily in the team and the scene. Moreover, Liquid even fielded two separate Apex Legends teams and remained involved in Apex Legends even during the COVID-19 pandemic, which ushered many organizations to exit the scene.

Throughout the three years, Team Liquid never emerged as the world’s best teams, but their perseverance paid off in 2022 when Liquid finished runners-up at Split Two Playoffs and claimed a top-12 finish at the ALGS Championship, which is no small feat in such a competitive scene.

Unfortunately, even though Liquid has achieved a lot this past season, the organization didn’t seem fit to continue competing in ALGS for the foreseeable future. As a result, Liquid released its entire Apex Legends roster, including Brandon “oh Nocturnal” Singer, Brandon “FunFPS” Groombridge, Thomas “Flanker” Cook, and head coach Haris “Hodsic” Hodzic.

“This team has definitely made their statement in the Apex comp scene and I can’t wait to see what you do next. And to the rest of the Apex Community, the supporters of Team Liquid, and especially to the BIPOC gaming community, I hope I made you proud,” said Team Manager Malik “Crusader” Forrester.

Neither of the four have yet to find a new home for the 2023 season, but given their status as some of the best NA Apex Legends players, they likely won’t need long to get picked up by another organization.