zews on Liquid's targets: "We made a list of 42 people"

Finally, all the cards are on the table. Liquid's five players and coach coming into 2024 have been announced, with much fanfare and applause. To coincide with the release of the final announcement, Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken, Janko "YNk" Paunović spoke with the coach of the new project, Wilton "zews" Prado, and the most unknown player of the team, Felipe "skullz" Medeiros, for a look at the state of Liquid in 2024.

This interview took place at YNk's eNat bootcamp in Belgrade, where Flyquest Red practiced just ahead of their games at ESL Impact Valencia. This is a short transcription of a few choice questions, watch the full interview in the embedded video below.

So back to Liquid, zews. How did that happen?

zews: For me, literally out of nowhere. I was semi-retired from the Fluxo thing and I got a message like "yo, what are you doing." I had some offers, they were all over the place, like LOUD VALORANT was looking at me, things like that, but I wasn't looking into anything. Then Liquid messaged me like "would you be interested", I'm like "yes". Doesn't matter the team, let's do it. I love Liquid as an org.

How about you skullz, were you surprised when the call came in? Was that your idea, zews?

zews: our team, we made a list of 42 people we scaled on who would be first, who would be 42nd. We had a cutoff line, like anything below we would rather stay as we are. There were a few names we went after, and he [points to skullz] was higher on the list than most people would imagine.

skullz: It's very similar to what zews said. I was between tryouts for another team in Brazil, and zews just messaged and called me and told me about whats going on. I was really interested and just refused the offer that I had and went all in for Liquid.

zews, tell me about this lineup. You have Russ back, NAF extending the contract, cadiaN coming in. How did the whole roster come together, and cadiaN, being the big character and leader he is and you as the coach, I imagine you already had some conversations with him on how that's going to work out.

zews: During that initial conversation, this was not the lineup that Liquid were shooting for. Not really shooting for, since they were trying to keep things under wraps, with these big moves, the less people know the better. When I was joining, I was hearing things of going back to its NA roots, so we were looking at players from EG who were coming out, oSee, everything with that. When they let me into the plans, cadiaN was a big part of it cause they wanted an IGL and he's also an AWPer that could lead. Mostly someone from that IGL perspective and someone with the charisma and character to lead. The in-game leader, not necessarily just from the strategic part. From that we started building, and from cadiaN's point-of-view, Russ was a gigantic piece.

I don't know exactly when or how that conversation started, but I'd say about two weeks in from our conversation, the Russ point was starting to solidify, way before Sydney or anything like that. He wasn't happy with some of the things and he has big roots with Liquid. We were trying to Moneyball, I guess is the best term, the best team possible. My expertise would be a lot on the EQ level. Understanding personalities and how to deal with each other. What kind of personalities would work well together. I have experience with Russ, with Keith, and I knew Mareks, and Casper I had brief experiences with. In our conversations, these personalities started to mesh well.

We have Jay [DeMars DeRover], our analyst, trying to Moneyball the statistical side inside the server of which roles fit in terms of efficiency, and he has an entire process. The best way I can describe how I view it is this is the best Moneyball team possible in terms of functions and roles inside the server and personalities and support staff with myself, Joka, and Edward [Edward Cleland of MindBodyEsports].

The way I'm looking at it, it's a Moneyball team in both the emotional and the in-game, which is why it made so much sense.

Do you guys have any tournaments this year?

zews: This year, no. For the first time, we have a decent roadmap to preparation. This might sound a little conceited, but what we're trying to do is create what we and I believe should be the new standard for Counter-Strike or esports teams in terms of preparation. The first we're doing as a team is having a five-day retreat away from computers, away from everything with Edward, our psychologist. Our entire plan has been brought up to set the foundation of how we want to handle ourselves as a team, what our mentality would be. Of course, team bonding, team activities, getting everything off our chests from the get-go. Having techniques on how to deal with pressure and how to not just focus on the moment and being accountable. I think we have like fifty points we want to catch up on. Then we're going to have around a two-week bootcamp of actually just practicing in-game where we're able to focus on the maps and the way to play and understand how Casper wants to lead this team, giving him all the tools and resources and space to lead this team.

Our first tournament will actually be the RMR Open Qualifiers, or Closed depending on how the ranking works out. We plan to create a good environment and starting point so that every time we move forward we can fall back to staying on track. We want to do something that's efficient for a long-term plan while being able to compete on the immediate short-term for trophies. We don't want to be that team that says "Oh we have to wait one year to start-" no, we know the pieces we have. We have to start now, but the problem isn't just starting to win for teams, it's maintaining at the top, which is why Astralis was so good.

What's that time frame looking like for you?

zews: That's hard to predict. We really hope that in our first tournaments, we do well. I'm not gonna say we're gonna win. I think any team that's making playoffs-, I always had a rule for myself, or at least a thought process, with semi-finals. If you want to be a world champion team, you have to consistently reach the semi-finals. If you reach 13 semi-finals a year, our of at least half of those you should be winning and making the final, and if you win half of those you have three major trophies.

zews: Yes, you can be a FURIA that only occasionally make it there, but they prove the point. If you only occasionally make it there, it's really hard to break that bubble and become the tournament favorites.

skullz: The consistency is the secret.

zews: Exactly. I don't know if from the get-go we're going to be able to do it, but I think we have the talent and potential for it. I believe we do need a little time to get the pieces and understanding. Right now, everything on paper looks amazing, but we're going to run into problems that happen either with personalities or what we didn't account for or not fitting in-game. We're going to need a little bit of time to tweak, but I don't expect it to be 6-8 months.

To see the full 40-minute long interview, watch the YouTube video. According to zews, the new Team Liquid will play its first official match either in the RMR Open Qualifiers, starting January 8th, or the Closed Qualifier, beginning on January 12th.