NAF: "After the Major decisions will be made within Liquid if they want to keep going with this lineup"

At the start of the year we added NertZ to the team, which was a big pick up for us. Back then, we also had jks and mithR as coach, so we had a lot of confidence at the start of the year coming in with the changes. We had a lot of playoff runs at the end of last year, quarter-finals, and we ended up going out a lot earlier than we expected.
So, we brought in NertZ, and later on siuhy to lead the team because Twistzz ultimately no longer wanted to do so. On paper, I think the team that we have now looks pretty good, but the results obviously say otherwise, right?

Obviously, it's no surprise that my individual form has been terrible to say the least. There's nothing but disappointment in my opinion.
But, I'm not sure, it's strange to pinpoint. Over the last five years I've played with a lot of different teammates and IGLs, and no matter what, I was always able to strive and find my individual prowess.
Coming into this team, ever since we added NertZ, I've been having a hard time finding my space within the team. As well, with siuhy coming in, here's not your classic, super selfless IGL, he wants to perform individually as well and always looks for his plays and space within the team. We kinda have five players who all want to do their best to perform, but finding the space for some of us can be more difficult, and I'd say for myself, it's been difficult to perform.
But, at the end of the day, I have no excuses. I need to find form to play better, and with the Major coming up, that's a lot of motivation to play good. I like playing at Majors, I always tend to find my strengths at them, so that's my time to step up.
After the Major we have the player break, and decisions will be made within Liquid if they want to continue going with this lineup or if they want to find something else. I'm hoping to redeem myself in Austin.

I think that in a lot of our talks about what we need to improve upon, it's just figuring out how to use our players on each map to the best of their abilities.
Being eliminated from Dallas was very disappointing, we had two weeks of practice just to show up and beat FaZe with a stand-in and just get destroyed by MOUZ and Aurora. We definitely had our conversations about how some players feel uncomfortable on some maps.
There's a lot of, not turmoil amongst the players and who they are, but how they are in the server and how we play things. We just need to get back to practice and find the answers before the Major, try to solve these issues so that we can go and be on the same page, and I'm sure that will help the individuals of the team. I'm sure it will help me out as well.
We just need to see, to work together, and to find a way where we can perform for the Major.

ultimate is a super confident player and we love the energy that he brought when he first joined, he has a lot of ideas on how he wants to play and we all let him do what he wants to do, because that's the best thing to do for a rookie. You want to give them as much space as possible and not micro-manage or shove shit down their throat constantly, or else they're not really going to turn into the player you want them to be.
Overall, I think he had a good start, but obviously there became some moments where he needed to adapt and find some better positioning and rotations and that type of stuff in order to perform consistently in tier one.
He's had his ups and downs, his hurdles to get over, but I think he's still performing and doing a good job, I just think that it's like with what I said before, some players are uncomfortable on some maps and some things need to change and cater more towards the playstyle of specific playstyles.
He's done a good job, he's a great teammate and a good player. I think a lot of players on the team are underperforming right now if you look at the stats and all that, so right now it's just more of a system issue, and that's on all of us to come together and be honest with each other about what's best for us and how we can make it all gel together to put up better results.
At the end of the day, it's a team game, so that's just what we need to do. Everyone is onboard to do it, so we just have to keep improving.

I think that no matter what, you could say that maybe it would've been better for Twistzz to become an IGL later in his career considering his age, but when he was leading the team he did a good job. He has a good understanding and mind for the game, he played under karrigan in FaZe when they were successful, so he's had a lot of experience playing under a lot of top players.
I think that showed with how he thinks about the game and the way he plays it, so I think he did a good job, but you could say that maybe the players weren't right. You had jks and myself, who are somewhat similar, and then you had a rookie in ultimate and YEKINDAR who had a lot of ideas but was underperfoming individually. Not to just point him out, a lot of us were underperforming individually at times as well when it was all going on.
So, he had a bunch of players that were underperforming and other factors as well, but what we got out of Twistzz IGLing was that we made a lot of playoffs, so for him to be IGLing for the first time and with players that were somewhat underperforming, I think we still had some highlights.
I think he can do it again one day, maybe with the right players. It's something he could come back to down the line, because I have nothing but good things to say about him as a leader.

It's always kind of interesting with our team now, we don't actually have any American players [laughs]. Obviously, Twistzz and I are both from NA and Canada, so I don't know how much the fans will show love and support.
Although, at the end of the day, Liquid's always been an NA org and had an NA fanbase, so I always appreciate and love all the fans that have come out over the years, especially during the Grand Slam run, that was always amazing. The energy that they bring, they all seem great and they are always loyal to Liquid.
Myself and and Twistzz have history there, being part of the best NA team to ever play CS, so it would mean a lot to make the playoffs, have a good performance, and play in a good arena. I understand all stages have crowds, but we would love to make playoffs and play in front of a big crowd and hopefully build off a streak and get the ball rolling, to at least have something to be proud of from the first half of the year.
We're just hoping to bounce back and have a good performance there, it's the Major so it's where things matter the most, right? We've just got to keep our heads down and make sure we show up.

As a player that's been through all of it, starting from the qualifiers to the Legends stage and onward, you can obviously have that moment where you're getting so many reps and so much practice from officials where that can have it's advantages.
But, at the same time, some players can become a little more exhausted from this, or be showing a lot of everything across the map pool and it can be difficult to adapt and create new things for the later stages when you play the actual best teams.
A lot of it goes both ways, but individually, I'd prefer to start in Stage 2 and work my way up, have a little bit of a warm up. But no matter what, if you're showing up and being the best team, no matter what practice you had before, it's all about who shows up in the server on the day.
There's conversations to be had about either one, but we just need to go in and be confident that we're the best team. In a lot of our games we feel like that we're mentally not the bigger dog in the server, and we need to gain that mental edge and be more prepared. That'll help us get wins as well.