EliGE: "[North American teams] should be gunning for the top of the world instead of just in our region"
After a series of many tournaments where Liquid placed both well and poor, we asked Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski about how his team has fared in the past few months, as well as where he expects them to be in the future.
After the ELEAGUE Major earlier in the year, Liquid acquired stanislaw. Over half a year later, how do you describe what he brings to the team?
One of the things that always really impresses and inspires me is when I see IGLs able to, from spawn, call a strat telling every single person what to do and be able to convey that idea all within 15 seconds of freezetime. He always has some idea that can be brought out if he sees something that can be exploited from the enemy team and it’s a trait that I’ve seen from so many talented minds in CS. Always calm, reasonable and someone that you can rely on. It has been great having him.
It was announced before ESG Tour Mykonos that nitr0 would be the in-game leader going forward. How has he done so far, and do you prefer his leading style to stan’s?
Nick has done a great job so far and, since we have been on a team so long together, we have most of the same protocols for situations and the same understanding for the game. It was easy to adjust to for me because it’s a similar style that I’ve been used to for most of my career where it is more around mid gaming and map control. Having them both be able to call is a good mix where you have Nick being with the pack able to call what he wants mid-round and Stan for the specific strats he is able to create.
What has it been like integrating Twistzz into the team? Do you have any thoughts about his growth into one of the team’s star players?
Twistzz has been able to fit in really well within the team inside of the game and out. He plays all of the spots that we needed and fits really well in terms of his style that he plays. He is still young and new to the top of the pro scene, so being able to see his growth has been amazing. He is willing to learn, creates a good atmosphere within the team and is always trying to hype everyone up. Combined with his mechanical skill, there is nowhere to go but up!
How would you compare zews to previous coaches that you have had?
zews has by far been one of the best people to work with in my career from his dedication to finding new things or studying to his attitude outside of the game. I think one of the biggest problems for us is consistency where we are able to beat anyone, but also lose to anyone as well and he is good at pointing out when something specific isn’t going right or the mentality isn’t right for something. He’s a true leader and I think one of the best things that I like about zews is his ability to bring up the really needed conversations that people need to hear. He has changed me as a player and a person throughout our time together.
What can you say about your Major Qualifier performance, losing to PENTA, BIG, and FlipSid3?
I think that major qualifier performance was a really good eye opener for us that showed that something needed to change. Inside and outside of the game didn’t feel right even prior to that despite our decent performance at ECS right before. I don’t think we were playing how we normally play in those games and that’s usually a trait that comes up many times whenever we lose to teams that we are viewed as the overdog for. They all played really well and were able to exploit our sloppiness.
It was a little over a year ago that Liquid received massive investment from an ownership group led by Ted Leonsis — how have things within the organization changed as a result of this?
Nothing really immediately changed for us when it was first coming together. I don’t remember exactly when it was announced or when it was settled but i’m assuming we already had zews by then and Jokasteve was our manager for a long time as well. Liquid has always given us whatever we needed and they are a great organization to be a part of. I guess it never really had any immediate changes for me because I’ve already had everything I would want from an org in terms of support of the team and infrastructure.
Going in a different direction, some analysts and talent, such as Thorin, call you the best North American player. Do you agree with their assessment, or do you think someone else holds that title?
I think that all of the top NA players are really similarly skilled and depending on which team is having a better run in a tournament or just doing better in general it will be that player that is the best NA player. Ultimately, I think we should be gunning for the top of the world instead of just in our region. The days where being the best in NA, whether it being team or player, are not here anymore and until NA has a team that is the best or actually near the top of the world we shouldn’t worry too much about it.
How do you think Cloud9 will fare with their new roster? We’ve seen that coldzera has said he thinks the old roster was better, would you agree with that?
Cloud9 are only going to get better with their lineup. I think that tarik and RUSH are really good players and could be what Cloud9 has needed to escalate them to be a top team. Both of them are really hard working, have a high amount of mechanical skill and know the game really well. I think that Cloud9 needed a change in the end and were stagnant for a while. With the addition of both of them, I can’t see it being for the worse.
Following that move, OpTic announced they had signed a European squad. What do you think about this team playing in North America, at least for the time being?
They’ve been a really good team to practice and play against, so I think they will only contribute to the scene. We need as many good teams for good practice as we can get so I’m happy that they are here at least for a little while to add to the ecosystem.
In September you attended ESG Tour Mykonos in Greece. What are your thoughts about attending an event in a new location (in CS terms)?
It was an amazing tournament to go to and in a place I will probably not have an opportunity to go to for a long time so I really enjoyed being given the opportunity. It gives players a different vibe to the tournaments from traditional stadium events that is a really good atmosphere to be in. I personally prefer the normal events because I’ve conditioned myself to where when I think of an event, I think of the huge stadiums and amazing feelings when you win a big round and the crowd goes crazy over it, but I love both types nonetheless.
You made two finals in a row at the aforementioned Mykonos and ESL One New York. What do you think is the main reason for this spike in performance? Where do you consider yourselves in the global ranking now?
After the break that gave us a different feel coming back into it and the switch from stan to nitr0 as the IGL was able to give that spike. I would equate it to how when teams have their honeymoon phases when they just pick up a new player and everyone is happy, joking all the time and nobody is worrying about the little nuances that are going wrong. We also came off of a week bootcamp where we had our sports psychologist Jared with us and he was able to help us and escalate us even further during that time. The combination of all of these factors was able to make us play great. However, I do think that we haven’t been able to keep up that same level of performance. Despite us always having hard opponents in our groups at events, we need to be able to beat these teams if we want to be considered top 5 in the world and we have not been able to deliver that consistency required for a high ranking. Right now, I would put us on the brink of top 10.
What do you think we can expect from Liquid in the coming months at the ECS, ESL Pro League, and IEM Oakland?
We don’t have a lot of time to really fix the in-game mistakes we made during the Minor and EPICENTER, but I think as long as we do the work we need to and prepare like we should, then we can still do well at these events. I hope that at ECS and ESL we don’t have the death group again so we aren’t thrown to the wolves from the get-go, but even if we do — like I said before, we need to be able to beat the best of the best to be considered the best. I expect us to do well and at the very least make it out of groups at all of these events and we are going to do our best to make that happen.
