Liquid's Rainwaker: "We are coming in as a dark horse"

Liquid's new addition Aleks "Rainwaker" Petrov will be playing his first Tier 1 LAN tournament with Liquid this week. With some questioning the decision to bring in a relatively inexperienced player from Europe, and move the team's core to the European region, this first event will potentially show whether the change has worked well.

Dust2.us' Gonçalo "GoncOak" Carvalho had the chance to speak with Rainwaker today prior to the start of the games about his introduction to Liquid, the pressure he might be facing, and what to expect from the team.

This is your first time with an international lineup, not speaking Bulgarian as well, is language going to be a barrier?

No, I don't think so. I will need time to get used to the calling in English and also the positions on the maps, but I don't think it's a problem.

How is it going so far in terms of chemistry with the rest of your teammates?

I mean, it's pretty good, we’ve had a bootcamp for 10 days. We played a lot and we have really good chemistry, we have banter between ourselves. So, I would say it's pretty comfortable playing in Liquid.

In terms of structure, how do you compare Liquid to your previous experiences?

It's totally different. I would say in my previous team, we were playing mostly defaults. But now in Liquid, there are many more rounds and many more different defaults. For example, we start with a default, and we go into a situation where we have set rounds and stuff to do. In 500 we didn't have that.

In terms of organizational support, how do you feel Liquid do in relation to your other experiences as well?

Liquid has been amazing this far, what more can I say? It's a Tier 1 organization. It’s also my first Tier 1 organization. I’ve only had experience with Tier 2 and Tier 3 organizations, but it's totally different from 500.

When the first reports came out about you joining Liquid, many fans questioned the organization's decision. What does that mean to you and what do you want to show to the fans that doubt you?

When such an opportunity comes, you can't just ignore it, even though you might be hated for it. I can understand it as they’re picking up an unknown Tier 2 player over a proven Tier 2 player from the Major or even Tier 1 players that have been playing well throughout the year. But I don't feel any pressure. I would say it's just up to me to perform.

You have played a couple of LANs before, but this is your biggest one so far in your still young career. Coming in and being one of the pieces that made the team change region, does that add any pressure to you?

I would say kind of yeah, I feel some pressure for now. But we're a new team, so we don't have that much of an expectation for this event. We are going into the tournament like a dark horse.

Regarding your roles, will we see you play more passively as nitr0 did?

Yeah, I'm taking most of nitr0’s roles, but we also changed some stuff with YEKINDAR and NAF. So, I'm feeling pretty comfortable in my positions.

Were you used to playing in those positions with your previous teams?

Yeah, some of them. I would say it's 60% I'm playing similar positions, and the other 40% I'm in new position, but I can get used to it.

You mentioned that you had been bootcamping before the tournament. Yesterday I talked to EliGE and he said that during scrims Liquid and Complexity have had some close games. Is that a bad sign for you guys or a good sign for them, if a sign at all? And, how did these past weeks go in terms of practice in general?

Yeah, the practice and the bootcamp went pretty good. We don't pay that much attention to wins because we're a new team. So, we are trying to figure out the way we want to play and the structure. With the Complexity games, yeah, they were close but it's only practice so we I can't say much.

Do you feel confident coming into this event and what can we expect from this Liquid lineup during this event?

I feel confident but as I said before, we don't have any set expectations for this event. We still want to show that we are competitive as a 10-day-old team. That's the only main thing for this event.

Are you treating this like a glorified bootcamp?

No, I don't think so.

Liquid is in a group with two top-five teams and then we have OG that is an unknown entity. Who are you most afraid of, if anyone at all? And who are you most looking forward to playing?

For me I'm looking to playing every Tier 1 team because I’ve never played against them, maybe just one or two matches in the past, but that's it. For our group, I would say FaZe and G2 are strong because they didn't make changes. So, they will probably play the same way they played before the player break. And for OG I can't say much, they have three new players, so it's probably the same as us with the new line-up.

Should teams fear you and what can we expect from you in the game versus G2 on Saturday?

Yeah, I would say so. As I said, we are coming in as a dark horse. As for the G2 match, we'll see what happens; I don't know what to say. We will show our best, we'll try our best to win, but we are a new team so anything can happen.

Liquid will be facing G2 in their opening BO3 in Group C of the BLAST Premier Fall Season on Saturday at 06:00AM.