jks: "Twistzz is a natural leader who understands the game really well"

Liquid have ended day one of IEM Cologne 2024 with a razor-thin 2-0 win over paiN. While it was another close win for the new-look Liquid squad, a win's a win and Liquid have done well to maintain a perfect record with their record additions. Following their win over the Brazilian, one of those new additions, Justin "jks" Savage, hopped on the desk to take questions from Tres "stunna" Saranthus, Jacob "Pimp" Winneche, and Mathieu "Maniac" Quiquerez about the match and the development of Liquid in the short time the roster has spent together.

Stunna: Congrats, so far how is it feeling on Team Liquid?

Yeah, it's great. The atmosphere is really good and everyone is trusting each other and we're progressing every single day. It's about as well as you can do on a new team.

Pimp: I'm going to be honest, I don't think anyone expected you guys to be playing so well so early. Are you surprised by how well you're faring so far?

A little bit, but I don't know honestly. We've been playing well in practice and we have the right mentality everyday and we're trying to improve even when we're winning, watching the games back for things we can fix. Everyone is playing really well as well so that helps.

We're a new team as well so people don't really have much info on us and what we're going to do, so that also plays into our playbook.

Maniac: How did you experience that game because it got dicey on both maps. How was it from within?

Obviously the first map was pretty close, I think we came back 12-10 down whereas in this one we were up 12-10. In the first map everyone stayed really positive, had good ideas, and knew what was going to work, we just needed to trust the calls and that was about it.

In the second game we should've won earlier. We knew what was going to happen, but we didn't play the rounds properly.

Stunna: With Twistzz taking over the helm, for you as a guy who has played with multiple IGLs, how's it going over there with his progress and fitting into that?

It's really good, honestly. He's a natural leader who understands the game really well. Obviously it can take away a little bit from his in-game, but so far it hasn't. If he can keep playing the game like that it is going to be crazy good, but yeah he just understands the game really well.

He's super calm, he plays for the team and he already did that before he was an IGL so like I said he's a natural leader.

Pimp: What about ultimate? Is he the real deal?

Yeah he's really, really good. Obviously he needs more experience...

Pimp: In what ways?

For one his English level is really good but it can always improve. That will get better over time, but he has really good initiative about what he wants to do every single round. He has good comms about what other people should do, he commands other people as an AWPer should do.

Like I said in some other interview if he continues on the path he's on he'll be a really good player.

Maniac: Whenever there's a rookie that makes it to the top level we embrace them when they get aggressive and take risks, but obviously mistakes happen. How does the team internally deal with that?

Everyone's encouraging each other to make mistakes so we can fix it after and you're not going to fix it if you don't make the mistakes. On the team you can make mistakes and no one is going to get angry, we just have to fix it as we go on and it's showing in ultimate's gameplay.

Obviously he's always going for picks and risky plays but no one is going to get angry at him or anything like that. He's pretty inexperienced so the only way he's going to learn is by making mistakes.

jks and Liquid will be back in action tomorrow against FURIA at 09:45AM.