Twistzz: "We're still trying to figure out our team identity"

Liquid, despite their struggle against FURIA on day two, have resurfaced on day three, eliminating BOSS from the Major in 2-0 fashion. Next, though, comes their hardest test yet. They face the highest-seeded team in the tournament, Complexity, for qualification to the Major, with elimination waiting in the wings for the loser.

After the victory against BOSS, Dust2.us' Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore spoke with Twistzz on the team's struggles, his return to North America, and the constellation of players and coach in Liquid.

This is the first time NA team you played at this event, what was your impression of BOSS when facing them?

We played them in Dallas qualifier six or seven days ago, so this was a fresh rematch against them. They definitely played better this time. Hopefully they keep playing, keep grinding, they're a team with potential in NA.

Upon rejoining Liquid, you're coming back from a European sojourn. Since leaving to join FaZe and coming back to Liquid, how has the NA scene changed? Has the quality of matches improved?

The quality of the teams here are really good, but I wouldn't say this is the quality you usually get in NA practice. Especially if you want to practice against teams you might be able to play at these events. Definitely, much different coming back from EU.

When you first joined Liquid, you were the young player coming in from Misfits. You were the newcomer to the big Liquid org. Now you've come back as the conquering champion having won a Major and a Grand Slam. How is your perspective joining an NA team again changed coming in as the superstar player?

To be honest, I still don't look at it as an NA team. It's definitely a team with two of the best NA players, in my opinion. If you put it like that, then yeah, it can be an NA team, but it is still very much European based. All of our practice is over there, we play online events over there as much as possible. I mean, I still live in Europe, you know? Obviously, this time around, it's very different. Different leader, different everything, different org mindset, and I obviously have a very different role here, out of the game, in the game, leadership role as well. It's early days of the lineup still. We're still figuring things out.

We've seen previously when Liquid brought in foreign players, shox back two years ago really struggled to make that transition to a team that spends half their time in North America. You and NAF have made your lives in Europe. Is it a struggle to balance that?

I would say being on Liquid so far, this situation we find ourselves in at the beginning of the year, we don't have invites to pretty much anything, we're missing out on EU events, we've ended up playing a lot of qualifiers which have to be played from NA. Safe to say, I'm disappointed with how the schedule has been for us so far. In some ways, it's complicating my life outside the game, which is frustrating. Nonetheless, we have to keep the ball rolling, working hard so at the end of the day, it's still worth it to play.

Within the squad, we see three rifling stars with you, NAF, and YEKINDAR. While you and NAF have made the transition well to the new squad, YEKINDAR has struggled to a degree. In your perspective, why do you think he hasn't hit the ground running as much as many may have expected?

I don't want to speak for him, so I can only give my point of view. I think suffering from the "IGL syndrome" could be a thing. Maybe he's just thinking about the game a lot. Honestly, our team play has been not great. As an entry fragger, you're going to suffer if our team play is not good. I think there's many factors that lead up to it. There's some personal matters that happened to him at the beginning of the event. I think he will get better as time goes on.

With FaZe, you primarily worked with RobbaN, and now you're with zews, two very different coaches. What's been the experience working with zews and what's the main differences in his approach to the game compared to RobbaN?

I'd say the biggest difference is their personality. RobbaN was much more laid back and chill, and Wilton is much more headfirst. Not stern, but he has a seriousness to him. He wants to make sure we're practicing right, doing everything the right way, whereas the overall environment on FaZe was more relaxed, regardless of the situation. That could just be because we played together for a very long time so it became that. Here, we're still trying to figure out our team identity. Do we want to be the serious time? What examples do we want to lead by? But yeah, the biggest difference is their personality.

Liquid will be playing Complexity tomorrow afternoon in the final do-or-die match to make it to the PGL Copenhagen Major.