NAF on making it to DC: "If we don't qualify it would be pretty disappointing"

Prior to facing off against Nouns, where Liquid were able to dispatch their fellow Americans in a 2-0 contest, Keith "NAF" Markovic and Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski spoke with Anastasija "Heccu" Tolmačeva to discuss the team's recent practice, expectations against Nouns, and being considered favorites for the event.

I recall before going to EPL, YEKINDAR said that the practice that you used to have was not efficient. Was the one that you had in Malta something that helped you out?

EliGE: Yeah, I think that it helped a lot. As soon as we started getting towards the end of it - the end of our practice days we were having really good scrims. Everything was going well. We ended up just having a lot of micro mistakes and I don't really feel like we're losing in the macro. So I think it's more about just getting the reps [in] and making sure that we're not making mistakes as much as possible and that's just gonna come down to reps and making sure that as a team we're all on the same page. I think we accomplished that.

In the last year, Nouns went through a lot of changes. Do you think they'll make you sweat today?

EliGE: I think that we should be displaying a higher level than them. So a good day for us should be a good 2-0, just really comfortable. I think that they can be playing a lot better, but at least for our standards, we expect to handily take this match.

Right now you kinda have those mixed results, but you are favorites of the whole tournament. Does that put any kind of pressure onto you?

NAF: No, no necessarily. I think to be called favorites for the tournament obviously for our names, but when it comes to Counter-Strike online it's a little bit different. I think that it benefits some other team's playstyles more than others, so I guess people can kinda figure that out for which those are. I don't know, obviously we're favorites for our names, but then again it's online Counter-Strike in North America. There's other factors to be played into it where players might perform better than other due to issues that others can't solve. We're just gonna play our game and see how it goes. Obviously, our goal is to qualify and obviously if we don't qualify it would be pretty disappointing.

With Liquid taking down Nouns, they are set to square off against paiN in a ESL Pro League Season 17 Playoff rematch where the Brazilians shocked the community thanks to a surprising upset against North America's best squad.