Team Liquid fail again, this time at Gamers8

Back in 2018, Team Liquid had one of the best CS:GO teams on the planet. But as the years went by, no replacements were found for some of the great players who left. The new players were good, but not good enough to help the team to continue winning trophies and competing in Grand Finals.

The last important result obtained by Liquid dates back to December 2022. That’s when they finished 2^nd at BLAST Premier: World Final. Another decent result was obtained in February 2023, at IEM Katowice (3^rd – 4^th). But since then, everything has gone downhill.

Finally, in June 2023, the team’s IGL, Nicholas “nitr0” Cannella, and Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski (who had been playing for Liquid for eight years) decided to leave. After their departure, the team moved from North America to Europe and started a new era.

The players who left were replaced, but the replacements were far less impressive: two names that didn’t say anything, from relatively small teams. The fans were probably shocked.

Since the big move occurred, Liquid competed in three tournaments: BLAST Premier: Fall Groups (7^th – 9^th), IEM Cologne (17^th – 20^th), and Gamers8 (9^th – 16^th). All of these results were big failures and they suggest that the new Liquid roster isn’t strong enough to compete against the world’s best.

2-0 vs @TeamLiquidCS ggwp.
Next we gonna play vs @Cloud9 .#EZ4ENCE

— NertZ (@NertzCS) August 16, 2023

What is to be done

No doubt, even though they might continue to play like this until the end of the season, at the start of 2024 Liquid will make significant roster changes. The two players who joined several months ago are the most likely candidates for replacement. The third option is Joshua “oSee” Ohm.

At the moment, Mareks “YEKINDAR” Galinskis and Keith “NAF” Markovic are irreplaceable.

Fortunately for Liquid, there are plenty of organizations in Europe that are not in a good position at the moment and will probably seek to sell some of their big names. So there will be plenty of options to choose from, assuming of course that Liquid are able and willing to make a significant investment.

Nobody knows at the moment what the approach is going to be, but it’s pretty clear that things cannot remain the way they are now.

We saw what Natus Vincere did to improve their roster. In Liquid’s case, the number of changes will be smaller. But it might be higher than 1.

Header: Team Liquid