Liquid's decision to skip PGL Cluj-Napoca was not the players

Liquid's decision to decline the invite for PGL Cluj-Napoca has been extensively criticized by fans and pundits. Unlike the other teams skipping the tournament — Spirit, Vitality, G2, and Natus Vincere — Liquid don't have much room to work with in the Valve Ranking System (VRS).

Turns out, though, that this controversial decision came from Liquid's management, and not from the players or the coach.

This was revealed by Liquid's head coach Torbjørn “mithR” Nyborg in a conversation with the caster Chad "SPUNJ" Burchill during the coach roundtable at IEM Katowice.

"I know that I'm not (the decision-maker)," mithR told SPUNJ, who asked if Liquid's manager Steve "jokasteve" Perino was the decision-maker on Liquid.

"We discuss what tournaments we want to go to. But yeah, that’s one of the things, where we’re being told what tournaments we go to, and I think that makes sense. There are a lot of details and meetings. I don’t know who has discussed what with who. At the end of the day, there are some tournaments we go to and some that we skip. It’s not going to matter too much for us whether it’s one or the other."

mithR also said that while he isn't excluded from such decisions, he's there to coach the team, and others make decisions like deciding which tournaments Liquid will attend.

Depending on their results at IEM Katowice 2025, Liquid would have to do significantly better in the next two tournaments, ESL Pro League Season 21 and BLAST Open Lisbon. These will be their latest opportunities to gain points on the Ranking before the April 7th cutoff for the BLAST.tv Austin Major.

And that may as well be the case as Liquid lost to HEROIC in the opening round of IEM Katowice Stage 1 and now need to win back-to-back best-of-threes to qualify for Stage 2.

Liquid's first elimination series at IEM Katowice Stage 1 is against Complexity tomorrow, January 31th.