Team Liquid vs Pain Gaming: IEM Cologne CS2 betting odds, tips

Luke Warr Published July 21, 2025

Pain Gaming crashed back to earth after a top-four finish in the BLAST Austin Major and Team Liquid is ready to take advantage of it in IEM Cologne.

While the BLAST Austin Major was an event packed with surprises, the biggest of all was Pain Gaming cobbling together a top-four run. The Brazilian team was an underdog when it came to advancing out of multiple group stages, but managed to reach the semifinals. But things have gone awry for the team since then, so can you bet on them winning against Team Liquid?

Team Liquid vs Pain Gaming match overview

• Tournament: IEM Cologne 2025
• Stage: Play-in Stage
• Game: Counter-Strike 2
• Format: Best-of-three

Betting tip: Team Liquid’s in a bad state right now. That’s all that needs to be said.

My Team Liquid vs Pain Gaming pick: Over 2.5 maps ()

Team Liquid vs Pain Gaming in-depth team, match analysis

Fissure Playground panned out to be a very interesting tournament. Some teams that made a splash in the major, like BetBoom Team and Tyloo, proved that they’re legit with deep runs in the tournament. Others weren’t so lucky.

Pain Gaming was among that lot. On paper, after its run in Austin, the team should’ve been one of the favorites to win the tournament. Instead, it flopped in the group stage with a 1-2 record, losing to 3DMAX and Lynn Vision Gaming while beating Rare Atom. While Pain’s group stagerun in Austin was impressive, this paints less-than-flattering picture regarding the team’s potential for sticking around among the elite ranks.

That’s good news for Team Liquid. The North American squad had a disastrous Austin Major, turning a stage-three invitation into a 0-3 elimination.

While it’s easy to question Pain Gaming, it can’t be understated how shaky Team Liquid’s roster is right now. The team returned to competition in the ESL Pro League Season 22 qualifiers. Though Keith “NAF” Markovic bounced back from his ugly Austin Major in an online qualifier match, the rest of the team stumbled en route to a catastrophic upset loss. The addition of Kamil “siuhy” Szkaradek doesn’t look to like a good one at this point, and more changes will likely be needed to make Liquid a credible team.

Though Pain Gaming washing out of Fissure Playground quickly is a bad look, there’s no shame in losing to the likes of Lynn Vision Gaming and 3DMAX. There’s reason to be ashamed of how Liquid has been playing, though.

Rosters and roles

Map pool

• The only map that Team Liquid has a winning record on is Anubis, where it’s 8-6. The team has had an ugly run on Nuke, Dust 2, and Mirage in 2025 so far.
• Pain Gaming is a respectable 13-8 on Nuke so far this year, doesn’t have a good record anywhere else. It has a downright ugly record on Inferno, Anubis, and Train, going 7-16, 3-8, and 0-6 on those maps, respectively.
• Neither team permabans maps, but Pain Gaming tries to avoid Ancient while Team Liquid does the same with Train. Given how weak Pain has been on Train, Team Liquid may look to lock in the map.

Key stats

Stats include all matches played by both teams in 2025 so far.

Team Liquid vs Pain Gaming head-to-head record

Despite both being “Americas” teams, Liquid and Pain haven’t played against each other all that much. In fact, the last time they played was in IEM Cologne 2024. Liquid won that match 2-0, though both teams have tweaked their rosters since then.

Team Liquid and Pain Gaming recent match history

Team Liquid is entering this tournament on an ugly skid that most recently saw the team upset by the unheralded Sashi Esport in an online qualifier match.

• Sashi Esport: 2-1 loss
• MOUZ: 2-1 loss
• The MongolZ: 1-0 loss
• Lynn Vision Gaming: 1-0 loss
• Aurora Gaming: 2-0 loss

Pain Gaming had a quick exit from Fissure Playground 1 after its run in the BLAST Austin Major.

• 3DMAX: 2-0 loss
• Lynn Vision Gaming: 2-1 loss
• Rare Atom: 2-0 win
• The MongolZ: 2-0 loss
• Furia: 2-1 win

Team Liquid vs Pain Gaming betting odds snapshot

Lines pulled from at 8 pm MT on July 20, 2025.

Team Liquid vs Pain Gaming betting picks and predictions

Team Liquid being pegged as the favorite in the feel absurd to some degree. Pain losing early in Fissure Playground is likely a more accurate representation of the team’s strength than placing top-four at the major. But with Team Liquid losing to the likes of Sashi, which was playing with a substitute, it’s hard to encourage putting money on anything resembling a top-20 opponent.

Best picks

• Over 2.5 maps @ 1.95 – Team Liquid and Pain Gaming are both extremely bad on a few specific maps that the other team happens to be good at. That should translate to a three-map series, one way or another.
• Pain Gaming wins @ 1.97 – Once again, Liquid’s struggling. The fact that the team is still the betting favorite provides some opportunity.
• Pain Gaming wins 2-1 @ 3.77 – As stated, there are weak maps to exploit here for both teams. Even if Pain Gaming should be the favorite, there are plenty of maps that Team Liquid can take advantage of.

Team Liquid vs Pain Gaming Prediction

Our pick: Pain Gaming as the match winner at 2-1 at 3.77 odds