YEKINDAR: "Our individual and team play skill got worse"

Prior to the team's debut in ESL Pro League Season 16 against Movistar Riders, Mareks "YEKINDAR" Gaļinskis talked with Heccu about his expectations for this group stage, the performance of the team, and how the player break can actually hinder the teams' and players' performance.

You are now here, in group D, and some people are saying that Group D is actually the easiest one. Do you think this will be a warm-up for the RMR?

I don't necessarily think so. We had a couple of problems coming after the BLAST event and going into practice. My guys went to the US for a while to see family and everyone, so we're all back down a bit. Our individual and team play skill got worse, so it's not necessarily warm-up, but it's gonna be survival. I think it's gonna be all hard games - people are saying it's the easiest group but it's never that way. It's always hard. It doesn't matter the type of teams you have in the group.

We actually saw some upsets in Group A and Group C - does this put some type of pressure on you that this might be replicated in this group?

No, like, you can obviously see some similarities but people don't think about that.

Liquid would go on to beat the Riders in a well-balanced series. The Latvian was the top-fragger as well as the highest-rated player in the series. Today's menu for YEKINDAR has EG's name all over, as Liquid look to show why they are #3 in the world.