YEKINDAR: "I'm still going to be IGLing" for Showdown, but daps will take over for CS2

To kick off Liquid's run in the BLAST Premier Fall Americas Showdown, Liquid face off against Forsaken in the first round. However, this comes after a bombshell move of Liquid's: benching Aleks "Rainwaker" Petrov and placing coach Damian "daps" Steele in his stead. Prior to their opening matchup, James Banks talked with Mareks "YEKINDAR" Gaļinskis about the new roster, with the IGL hinting that daps intends to stay on the lineup, eventually fully relieving YEKINDAR of the calling burden.

Why kick Rainwaker? What wasn't working?

I think it's a combination. Aleks is a strong player individually, it's just a combination of his inexperience in tier one and having not enough voices in the team.

More voices to help you out?

Yeah. There was no secondary player who could take initiative and control the macro and micro people enough. Yes, there were glimpses of it from each player, but there was no consistent player that could actually micro people and help with macro, turn people around, cancel rounds, whatever. That was the main problem so we needed to take a hard step. We're trying to experiment now, benching Aleks and bringing in Damian for this tournament, which in our eyes, I think would be better because it would be another strong voice in the team. Now I don't know, he's sick, his voice is completely dead, but I hope it's gonna be good.

Maybe he can type something really quickly instead of using his voice

laughs, yeah. He can make binds and just press on the button. "Go B", "Go A"

For you, does this mean you're still calling for this tournament? Because maybe you're lacking some firepower with daps cause he hasn't played for some time, then you need to go back to playing a bit more focused on yourself?

The change happened after we bombed out of ESL Pro League and we didn't have time to change the system as Damian would want to have it if he were IGLing. Especially since CS2 came out, it's a weird mixture of "what do you do?" Do you try to systemize CS:GO for this event, or do you try to start calling for CS2? Basically, we came to the conclusion that I'm still going to be IGLing, but at the same time, Damian is going to be chipping in and picking up some of the responsibilities, and later on, when CS2 is coming out, then he would completely take over.

So even going into CS2 daps will be staying in the team and you won't be looking for another player?

It is possible. At the moment, we are experimenting. We're gonna play. If it's gonna be good, it's gonna be good, and if it's gonna be bad, we're obviously gonna be looking at other different options. It's a matter of how we and the organization feel about it.

Immediately after the interview, analyst Jacob "Pimp" Winneche chimed in saying his "bullshit alarm" was going off, saying "why on earth is he [daps] on the server" if he's not going to call for this tournament and calling out YEKINDAR claiming daps will stay on the roster once CS2 tournaments begin.

Liquid's first scheduled CS2 tournament is BLAST Spring Groups 2024, however, if they win the Americas Showdown, we could see them compete as soon as mid-November at the BLAST Premier Fall Final 2023.