daps: "We don't regret the map choice, we just f*cked up a lot"

Liquid came into the opening round of the BLAST Paris Major full of confidence of the back of a bootcamp from which they promised to show a different style. However, it was much of the same story for the team, known for their slow starts at events it was same issues different day for Liquid as they fell to a 7-1 deficit early. The NA squad were unable to complete a comeback as they lost 16-12 to Apeks.

Dust2.us' Ryan Friend caught up with Damian "daps" Steele after the team's loss to discuss the game, where it went wrong, and in particular the veto.

Despite star turns from Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski and Josh "oSee" Ohm, the team were unable to win a lot of their individual fights, and won only one clutch compared to Apeks' three.

I think overall it was very good, I don't know if you watched but we lost a ton of post-plants, close-round clutch situations. Honestly, it just came to individual focus and kind of being on the ball a bit. overall the gameplan was fine but we just individually went there. we started slow.

Keith "NAF" Markovic had his worst map since 2021, posting a 0.55 rating, and for a player usually so consistent its a worrying sign for the team moving forward. Daps believes that despite getting in some good positions there were some nerves in the team that allowed Liquid to lose control of rounds.

I think maybe a bit of nerves crept in but I think overall we just started slow. I think we got into a lot of positions we wanted to, a lot of positions we got into in practice we just lost a ton of fights, and that snowballed and allowed them to win some rounds.

Moving onto the veto, Daps insisted that the team had been feeling super comfortable on Ancient after working on it in their bootcamp. Whilst it didn't work out this time, the coach doesn't regret the map choice.

I mean historically, I'm sure someone can look back but we have been pretty good at making our worst map our best. Ancients a map we have felt really good on practice on recently, we actually had a bootcamp this time and we put a lot of time into it. That was the reasoning behind it, we are still comfortable on Overpass as well but we were planning for Ancient. We didn't know if we would pick the map or not, but we thought it would go to Ancient anyway. We don't regret the map choice, we just f*cked up a lot.

Liquid is set to take on FORZE in the 0-1 pool, a tough match, and probably not the team that Liquid would want to be coming up against after losing in the first round. Daps is well aware of the danger they pose, despite FORZE having thrown away a 12-3 lead against Grayhound in their first round.

FORZE, BO1 they have shown some good form as of late. We are going to try and go back and do as much prep in the time we have and be prepared.

Luckily for Liquid they will be the last set of matches for the day, meaning they have plenty of time to prepare for their next opponents.