Team Liquid‘s rebuild started when cadiaN and skullz were benched towards the end of June and the start of July. With the core of Keith “NAF” Markovic, Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken, and Mareks “YEKINDAR” Gaļinskis, they added an established player from Australia, Justin “jks” Savage, and a newcomer from Poland, Roland “ultimate” Tomkowiak, on July 12, 2024. To date, they’ve played 62 maps with a 58% win rate.
After the addition of jks and ultimate, Liquid started their first event by winning an opening match vs. Virtus.Pro. After that, they defeated NAVI back-to-back. Next in line was the Cologne Play-in, where they kept on winning. The opposition was a bit weaker than in the first event, but they didn’t falter against these opponents, showing potential for the future. They won over paiN and FURIA. This was their honeymoon period, during which they didn’t lose a single game and qualified for IEM Cologne and Fall Finals. After a great start in their debut, Cologne began, where they lost twice to FaZe and recorded a win in the lower bracket against Complexity. They had a minor setback in the upper finals of the IEM Rio Qualifier but managed to reach the grand finals and take revenge against Coldzera’s Legacy. In the ESL Pro League and BLAST Premier Fall Final, they reached the quarter-finals both times, where they lost to G2 and FaZe for the third time. This wasn’t the end of their one-sided rivalry against FaZe, as they faced them again in IEM Rio and lost yet again, resulting in an early exit and a 9-12th place finish.
Their last event was a disaster due to losing both matches against G2 and Vitality, who even had a stand-in. After a quick exit, we heard NAF’s interview, where he expressed his disappointment in the team’s current level. He touched a bit on their problems and emphasized the lack of team cohesion and not being on the same page. His opinion on fixing what they lack is that it will come from playing more together. He also mentioned how other teams have started punishing ultimate’s aggressive playstyle, commenting that he should work more on his timings and find different ways to outplay opponents. They’ve chosen to stay in Singapore before their next event, Major RMR. The reason behind this surprising decision lies in the short timeframe for RMR, which is also in Asia, so they prefer to stay rather than return to Europe for a week, which would, aside from jet lag, also mean losing more days of practice. His upcoming goal is to qualify for the Major, as Liquid missed out on the last one.
From an expert view, they have a very weak map pool. Even though they beat G2 13-0 in their last game on Ancient, there aren’t enough games to prove how good Ancient is for them, as they’ve only played it four times against top teams and only lost to NAVI in a close game. Their comfort pick is Anubis, on which they have a record of 10 wins and 2 losses, and it is undoubtedly their best map. Their most preferred map after Anubis is Inferno, with a record of 4 wins and 5 losses against tier-one opponents, 2 of which occurred during their debut games. Next up is Mirage, where they also struggle against stronger opposition. Excluding their 2 wins over Fluffy Aimers, who were ranked 130th on HLTV at the time, they have 2 wins and 5 losses. Their worst map is Nuke, which they prefer over their permanent ban, Vertigo, but as they perform very poorly on it, opponents often target this map. Lastly, there is Dust2, which they occasionally target against certain teams on rare occasions, but it’s usually left as a decider. Their record on Dust2 is also underwhelming; they won the first two times but have since lost five times in a row. They especially struggle on the T side, where they have the second weakest T side with a 43.9% win rate against Top 20 opposition (Ranking Filter: Top 20).
An interesting stat is that Liquid’s pistol round win rate is the 3rd worst among all top 30 teams, with only 40.6% won out of 96 pistol rounds.
Player Analysis
NAF has been a part of Liquid for a commendable amount of time and is approaching his 7th year with the team. There’s a reason why he has been with the team for this long. He has been included in the top 20 three times, but in numerous interviews, he has stated that he doesn’t care about awards because he knows his worth and is focused on winning team trophies, not individual ones. Recently, his average dropped a bit, but it is still very good with a 1.09 rating over the past 3 months. He excels in the fundamentals of CS, such as trading and utility usage. He is extremely reliable and consistent, and on the CT side, he takes anchor positions and owns them. His best CT map rating-wise is B site on Ancient (1.40), where Liquid has 6 wins and only 1 loss in the past 3 months. On the other hand, his rating on B site Dust2 is 1.11, which is still impressive, considering Liquid’s record of 2 wins and 5 losses. On T sides, it is mostly mirrored; the exception is Inferno apps, where he plays B on CT and defaults towards long on Dust2. The T-side map where he stands out is Anubis, where he plays as a B lurker and has posted a monstrous rating of 1.73 over the past three months against all opponents. Even more impressive is his 1.65 rating against top 10 opponents. He has a lot of variety in his gameplay, without easy “tells,” making it very hard to secure an entry on his side of the map. He mainly plays a lot of anti-push angles and, from time to time, can leave B early based on a call. It’s very hard to determine if he is there or not, as he doesn’t give away many sound cues or make unnecessary peeks, meaning he usually activates in the late round. His strengths are consistency, positioning, outstanding game sense, and utility usage.
YEKINDAR came from Virtus.Pro two years ago, where he was individually at a very high level and their best player. Being Top 8 in 2021 and Top 15 in 2022, it’s surprising to see him struggling this much and for this long. There was also a time when he tried to be an IGL, which didn’t quite work out, and there is still a big question surrounding his individual performances. The team might be on the rise, but we need to see more from a player who was included in the Top 20 twice and was notably considered the best hyper-aggressive entry in the world. Over the last three months, he has averaged a 0.95 rating with 0.99 impact. In his interviews, he mentioned that his performance struggles stem from mental issues, and viewers can often see a lot of self-directed frustration from Mareks. However, this has been an ongoing issue for several months already. High impact is expected from him due to his roles, where he has a lot of freedom and the ability for very aggressive map control. He creates space with 26.2% opening attempts and a 46.2% opening success rate, and the team converts this with a 68.8% success rate. Considering his performance across all maps, he is definitely putting up a lackluster showing, which in recent months has cost him a few good positions, such as mid on Mirage and yard on Nuke on T sides, where he achieved low ratings of 0.88 and 0.86, respectively. His performance on other T sides, aside from the Anubis canals where he has a rating of 1.18 and is ranked 6th among players from the top 20, is still extremely poor. He has ratings of 0.59 on Dust2 and 0.70 on Inferno, placing him near the bottom of the rankings for players from top 20 teams. Regarding his performance on CT sides, he struggles, though not as severely. Some high-impact positions where he underperforms include B on Inferno, where he has a rating of 0.99; short on Mirage, with a rating of 1.01; and A rotation on Dust2, where he achieves a rating of 0.97. I’m surprised Liquid is still tolerating Mareks, especially considering that esports is a performance-based industry. For a player reportedly earning a high five-figure salary yet posting poor ratings while enjoying considerable freedom and space, he would have been gone long ago if I were in charge. His strengths are clutch potential and adaptability to the meta, while his weaknesses are poor mental resilience, which leads to individual underperformance, and a tendency to over-aggress.
Twistzz сame from FaZe Clan not too long ago with the goal of making this team compete for trophies. Their next goal is to go through the Americas RMR easily and then go as far as possible in the Shanghai Major. Individually, he is putting up very good numbers, averaging 1.10 over the past 3 months, and rating-wise, he is their best player right now. His rating dropped a bit since leaving FaZe, but that is understandable as it is a newly formed team. Despite the position changes on various maps due to taking on the IGL role, Twistzz has maintained high impact, and his firepower hasn’t dropped off drastically (unlike YEKINDAR). Another noteworthy aspect of Russel is that he stepped outside the conventional approach of merely relying on HLTV ratings and recycling the same players. Instead, he made an out-of-the-box pick with ultimate, scouting him from the lower ranks of Tier 2 EU CS and watching countless demos of him from both HLTV and Faceit. His pros are exceptional aim and mechanics, which generate high multi-frag potential, a positive attitude, and clutching ability. His cons are struggling under pressure and having limited impact against top teams.
ultimate was a relatively unknown player just a few months ago, but he has since experienced a significant jump in the level of CS he plays. His first few events with Liquid were decent, where he achieved an average rating of 1.16 across five events. However, in the last three events, he has underperformed, posting an average rating of 0.84. Since joining Liquid, Roland has maintained an acceptable rating of 1.07 with a 1.12 impact, especially considering that he is still adapting to Tier 1 CS. He excels in mechanical skill and a hyper-aggressive style of AWPing, which initially brought him a lot of success. Recently, he has been easily countered and punished, so he needs to take a step back and find a way to balance his aggression with a bit of passiveness while maintaining his high level of confidence. Roland’s skill ceiling is high, and he definitely has a good amount of growth potential. Considering that he is a modern type of AWPer who can handle rifles well, if he improves his lows as he acclimates to this high level of CS, he is likely to become a formidable player in the competitive scene. His pros are excellent mechanical skill and high skill ceiling. His cons are performance inconsistency and poor utility usage.
jks is the final piece of the puzzle, and his last official match was with G2 in October last year. He’s slowly returning to tier 1 CS. Since joining Liquid, he has posted a rating of 1.00 with an impact of 0.88, which is not far from his time in G2, where he had a rating of 1.05 and an impact of 0.89. Justin played alongside Russel when he stood in for ropz at IEM Katowice 2022, which they won. In an interview at that time, Russel mentioned that he had to convince RobbaN and karrigan that jks was the best option, highlighting his confidence in Justin’s skill. He shares many positional and playstyle similarities with NAF, with whom he played back in Renegades. On the CT side, Justin covered all the roles left vacant by skullz’s departure, which included hard anchor positions. He excels on the CT side, but his relatively low rating mentioned above is due to poor performance on the T side and Liquid’s overall struggles there. He posts impressive ratings on CT sides, including a 1.35 rating as an A player on Nuke, a 1.28 rating as an A anchor on Ancient, and a 1.24 rating as an A anchor on Anubis, which places him among the top 10 anchors in these positions among players from top 30 teams. On the other hand, he has shown poor performance on T sides, and NAF mentioned in an interview that Justin adapts better to aggressive plays on the T side. As a result, Justin has been placed in faster-paced roles, while NAF has taken on slower positions. In their last official match on Mirage, we saw jks and NAF swap positions, which may also be a response to Justin’s poor performance as an A lurker, where he recorded a dismal rating of 0.72 across 92 rounds, which is definitely his worst T-side position. The only position where he stands out on the T side is as an A lurker on Ancient, where he posts a rating of 1.15 across 69 rounds. His pros are being reliable and not a liability on the CT side, as he often secures multi-frags. His cons are that he lacks identity and initiative on the T side.
To sum up, this is definitely Liquid’s best lineup in the last two years, but it’s still not at the level where they can compete for trophies yet. Their coach is largely unknown in the sense that we have no idea how, or even if, he helps at all in making the game plan or in the way practice is conducted. Their best feature is their firepower, while their worst is team cohesion and the lack of being on the same page. YEKINDAR is certainly a liability, and the money he’s earning could definitely be put to better use. Aside from that, there is an obvious role clash between NAF and jks, and in the long term, that will become evident. I give this lineup 5 months at most.
