EliGE on facing NAVI: "I feel confident to win"

Liquid's captain Nick "nitr0" Cannella said prior to their Challengers stage run "I don't see a world where (we start slow) with how we're playing right now." A slow start is exactly what Liquid did have, however, immediately going down to 0-2 after the opening day. Getting through to the Legends stage in an unconvincing fashion, Liquid kicked off this phase against 9INE and there was no slow start this time, convincingly taking Overpass 16-9. Influential in their comeback from 0-2, Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski chatted with Ryan Friend of Dust2.us following their strong opening victory over the Poles.

Storming out to an early 6-1 lead on the T-side, it looked like Liquid was cruising toward a comfortable win without much fuss. However, the Polish outfit would find a response, winning five rounds straight to tie things back up at 6-6 before Liquid re-stabilized and took the final three rounds of the half. Despite the final score being a strong one for Liquid, EliGE believes there are still mistakes in the team that need to be fixed.

The only thing that they were really doing that was killing us was just swinging blue. Outside of that, individual mistakes on our execs which was making us lose those rounds so when we started losing those rounds it was from being unfocused and making some mistakes but thankfully we could pull it back and have a really strong CT-side.

When it came to Liquid's rough start in the opening days of the Challengers stage, it seemed like the issues went beyond just the mechanical skill or the strats being called. Mood and atmosphere is important, especially in an emotionally charged team like Liquid so EliGE is glad that spirits are high once again.

Yeah I think that the vibes and the comms have been a lot better, it's just progressively gotten better as the tournament has started. I think it is something that some teams can come into the Major cold and I'm sure we will see more of that as the day goes on for some teams that haven't played through the Challengers stage like they might start off cold, let's see what happens. So I think that is a factor and I think it was a factor for us. You can just see it now, we look more comfortable, our comms are a lot better, we're going into the games not being down a bunch, and we're winning pistol rounds so we're playing a lot better.

EliGE is well acquainted with his 1-0 opponent Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyljev who is the undisputed GOAT of CS:GO. Making the semifinal and final of the two Majors way back in 2016 together at MLG Columbus and ESL One Cologne, s1mple has gone on to win his Major but that is a title that still eludes the American. Ahead of their matchup later today, EliGE is feeling confident ahead of the game.

I think it's a good matchup for us. We played them a couple of times in our bootcamp and we played well against them in that. We pretty much already know what maps it's going to be against them or what it's going to be down to. It's down to two maps for us so there's not a lot of guesswork in the prep which is really helpful because sometimes there are games where you don't really know if it's going to be down to these three maps and you'll have an up in the air veto or they might change something before they come into the tournament. I think for NAVI, we know what it's going to be already and we're going to have a really focused mind coming into it. For the other matches we have had we've had really good reads every time since like the second day. I think we have been really confident with what everyone has been doing. As long as we keep that up, our comms are good, I feel confident to win.

EliGE is confident in the 2-0 start to the Legends stage, with their match against NAVI set to start soon.