NAF: "For this stage I just expect we 3-0 it."
After a convincing victory over OpTic, Dust2.us's resident brit Michael "Duck" Moriarty was able to catch up with Liquid's own Keith "NAF" Markovic and ask him about how his thoughts on the Major were so far, how the team dealt with tech delays, and who they hope to avoid in the tournament.
A dominant start to your major, what are you initial thoughts on the major so far? Were you expecting to win it [against OpTic] or was it up in the air?
I've watched their games, of course they kind of bombed out at ZOTAC and Stockholm so it doesn't seem like they're playing their best right now, they need more work. So just going into the game we had a two week bootcamp so we were really confident and we just played our game and it worked it out against them.
You've been with the team for a while, taken some time off to bootcamp, taking time off from Cologne to sort your tactics out, so how confident are you guys pushing through this stage?
For this stage I just expect we 3-0 it. Since we bootcamped a lot of teams can't see what we're doing so they can't anti-strat. Going into this stage, it should be a breeze.
So far today there's been quite a few technical difficulties at the event, how has this impacted your team and playing?
I think the more tournaments you go to, and the more technical pauses you go through you just get used to them. It's really late here because of the tech issues and delays so some of us are pretty tired so we don't really want to be dealing with tech issues. I don't think of any of us have problems with tech issues.
In terms of tomorrow, who are some teams you'd prefer to play against, and who would you want to avoid playing against?
Obviously I don't want to play Astralis. I don't know I think the player break effected them a bit from before the player break, but obviously I want to avoid them. HR seems to be looking kind of good, they beat North who recently won Stockholm. So I probably want to avoid Astralis... and NIP. We scrimmed NIP during our bootcamp and they usually beat us in scrims. They're looking really strong and a lot of NIP fans should be excited about this NIP. For teams I want to play against would be Rogue, TYLOO, if coL beats Astralis I'm down to play coL, I don't mind domestic matchups. There's Vega as well, and I'd worry about playing BIG because Gob B and his tactics. If there's a team I want to avoid, it's Astralis. I'd like to play against it's TYLOO because of their PUG playstyle, it's really aggressive and erratic.
When you joined Liquid you were this star player and over time, you now have this role in your team, do you see your performance as similar now as a year ago, or has it gotten better?
I owe a lot to the Renegades guys cause they picked me up when I was in a bad spot and they gave me full control. I told them I want to be a star, I want to show the world, so huge shout out to them. I just did what I did on Renegades and I carried it over to Liquid and now I have a lot of experienced players who are top players so we can compete at the top level internationally. It just helps to play with players who are experienced and are good teammates.
Liquid would later go on to face HellRaisers on Inferno where they would take the win 16-9 after a strong CT side. It wouldn't be the second round that NAF would see Vega, but as he alluded to, he wouldn't mind playing against Vega. In the 2-0 round NAF will get his wish as Liquid will face off against the Russians to kick off day three of the Major qualifier.
