Figuring out Rainwaker, Liquid's surprise addition

In a shocking move, Liquid decided to move away from North America and seek talents in Europe to complete their Counter-Strike roster for the second half of 2023. While this was always a possibility, fans thought Liquid would use the opportunity of expansion in the region to obtain the talents of some of CS's most illustrious free agents and stars. What people weren't expecting, was Aleks "Rainwaker" Petrov.

A relatively unknown Bulgarian player, Rainwaker was on very few radars for the summer player-break, at least for general Counter-Strike fans. Who can blame them? In an off-season with names like Mohammad "BOROS" Malhas, Shahar "flameZ" Shushan, and Denis "electroNic" Sharipov flying around, why would a plucky young Bulgarian who has never played in a Major stand out?

So then, why did Liquid choose Rainwaker for their first foray in a European lineup? Let's dive into his statistics and see what he brings to Liquid.

Positions

It's easy to assume that Rainwaker was brought into Liquid to be a passive element. However, we can see that he plays a variety of positions on different maps, ranging from star roles to extremely supportive elements.

For example, let's take a look at Rainwaker's playstyle on Nuke. On 500, he roamed around the lobby on T-side, not participating in outside takes or defaulting towards ramp at all. On CT-side, he played the aim-heavy, solo ramp player. This is a spot traditionally reserved for those players with cracked first-bullet accuracy and incredible mechanical prowess; think Robin "ropz" Kool, Valeriy "b1t" Vakhovskiy, and BOROS. The ramp player encounters many isolated 1vX scenarios, requiring their crisp aim and solo play to get a quick kill or two and dip out. 500 noticed his aim and put this all-important position in his hands.

On Mirage, Ancient, and Overpass too, we see Rainwaker playing passive, supporting roles on T-side, while holding some of the most crucial spots on CT-side. On Mirage, he played Catwalk as a defender and lurked Palace as an attacker, two of the most opposite roles you can find on that map in terms of expected action. On Ancient, he likewise played Donut on CT-side and lurked A on T-side. On Overpass, he was the Bathrooms player on CT-side, the most impactful position in the entire map pool, but was reserved for the connector player on T-side, one of the least.

On other maps, namely Inferno and Anubis, we really see his supportive elements come to fruition. None of the positions he plays, CT-side Inferno A rifler, T-side Inferno apartments player, CT-side Anubis A anchor, or CT-side Anubis A lurker, are particularly powerful or aggressive.

So, what did we learn from these graphs? On 500, Rainwaker played some star roles as well as some supportive roles on CT-side, while his T-side was chock full of support positions. As he is taking Nick "nitr0" Cannella's spot on the roster, Liquid needed to pick up a passive player to replace their departing in-game leader, and it seems like they've found their man.

Rainwaker's CT-side will likely take a hit upon entering the new roster, though. There is already some conflict between Mareks "YEKINDAR" Gaļinskis and Robert "Patsi" Isyanov playing A Donut on Ancient and Catwalk on Mirage. Somehow, I don't think Rainwaker will be coming away with these positions in the face of those other two. Nuke too, will also face some issues with Keith "NAF" Markovic playing Ramp prior to the Bulgarian's arrival. It's likely that Rainwaker will be completely relegated to the supportive, anchor roles that nitr0 played in, but, he's neither a stranger nor a slouch when it comes to these types of positions.

Playstyle

Roles aren't the only reason Liquid looked to this young Bulgarian. To get some insight into Rainwaker's playstyle, let's compare him to established tier-one players. Using a method akin to this HLTV article used to find academy players' doppelgangers in top teams, we can likewise see who Rainwaker is most similar to in the best teams in the world.

With minimal opening engagements, yet high supportive character and output, Rainwaker is most analogous to the world-class support players in the top teams, with the highest similarity score going to Liquid's former player, Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken.

Twistzz is well known for his sharp aim and mechanical prowess, but on FaZe, he often plays support roles to set up the other stars on the team, Håvard "rain" Nygaard, Helvijs "broky" Saukants and Robin "ropz" Kool. Nonetheless, Twistzz still pulls out positive ratings in the majority of his maps, despite his disadvantaged roles. Below you'll find the five most similar players to Rainwaker in terms of playstyle.

• Twistzz: 86.3%

• Magisk: 80.7%

• mezii: 80.7%

• sjuush: 79.7%

• Spinx: 79.3%

This is the hole on the team that Liquid hope Rainwaker can patch. With YEKINDAR, Patsi, and NAF on the squad, Rainwaker does not need to drop a 1.40 rating every match. He only needs to set up his aggressive riflers to win the opening engagement and secure the round from there. As a top-five successful flashbang thrower of all time, Rainwaker is fully equipped to do that for Liquid.

When Liquid went to Europe and picked up Rainwaker, they weren't looking for another aggressive opener. Once obtaining Patsi, Liquid were never gunning for the likes of BOROS, flameZ, or electroNic. They needed a supportive backbone to bolster their already stacked squad. That's what Liquid searched for in Europe, and Rainwaker is who they found.