Team Liquid’s EliGE talks Counter-Strike’s present, future

Team Liquid star EliGE speaks to FanSided about the state of North American Counter-Strike and future of CSGO after Liquid’s two runner-up finishes.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive can be a fickle game, especially if you’re speaking about North American Counter-Strike. But Team Liquid are carrying the banner for North American CSGO as they continue to impress.

Liquid pulled off an upset to reach the finals of July’s ELEAGUE Premier, and followed that up by making it to the semifinals of the London Major. They then finished second again on their home turf at last weekend’s ESL One New York.

What’s the secret to their success? At ELEAGUE, FanSided spoke to Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski about his team, his thoughts on the North American CSGO scene, and what it’s like to be a CSGO player in 2018.

FanSided: Team Liquid is typically viewed as the underdogs when you’re drawing teams like Astralis. What does that perception do for you as a team?

Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski (EliGE): It’s a lot easier to play when you’re the underdog, because no one really expects anything from you. They’re not going to watch your demos. They’re going to underestimate you. So I think it’s a pretty big load off everyone’s mind that we’re not the favorites going into these games.

FanSided: Is there something particular about the current Team Liquid roster that’s enabled your current CSGO success?

EliGE: I think we all just have a really good chemistry with each other. I don’t think there’s been any problems since we’ve made the team. Everyone’s really comfortable with each other. We get along well outside the game, and I think our play styles compliment each other as well.

FanSided: CSGO in North America is complicated. Cloud9 won the Boston Major and then scattered, while every roster seems to be fighting to keep up with European teams. How do you see the current NA landscape?

EliGE: I think we’re definitely playing the best right now, as we’re going into the player break. The other teams just made some changes so it’s going to take them a bit to adapt … It’s going to be really hard for both of those teams to really show their full potential if they could and I think that we are the ones that are being super-strong towards the end of the season. After all of us have sufficient practice, I think that’s when we’re going to really see how good everybody is.

FanSided: Do you stay aware of the changes of other organizations like Cloud9 and how those could affect you, or focus strictly on what Team Liquid needs to accomplish?

EliGE: We are really are just going to be focusing on our team, primarily. What other teams do has no immediate effect on us. We are just focused on playing our game and going to be playing as good as we can.

Honestly, it’s kind of a confidence-booster when you see a team does make a change a couple days before you play against them, because they’re not going to have anything super-set. They’re going to be doing things that are a bit more loose. They’re not going to have super in-depth strats, the chemistry’s not going to be all there, so I think that’s something we can really use.

FanSided: Talk has increased about how busy the CSGO schedule is and how more player breaks may be in order. What are your thoughts on that?

EliGE: I personally feel the same way. I think there’s a little bit too much going on in the scene right now. I think it kind of devalues some of the hype when you see some of the best teams play each other. If there was just one season with one tournament at the end, like most pro sports? Then it really gets super-hyped when you see Astralis versus us or Astralis versus Na’vi. When you have that type of climate in the scene, it really amplifies everything in my opinion.

FanSided: You haven’t won at any of these recent events, but you’ve still shown very well. How does Team Liquid consider a season? Is it strictly wins or overall performance?

EliGE: I guess just seeing how we did at the very top events. In the past two months, we’ve been going back and forth to a bunch of different tournaments, but the ones that we did really good at were the ones that were way bigger than all the other ones. I think that’s something we’re going to be looking at during our break, like yeah, we did pretty good these past couple months.

FanSided: What’s the most rewarding thing about playing professional Counter-Strike?

EliGE: Honestly I could say everything. Before I got into pro gaming, I never would have thought I’d be traveling to other countries. Now I’ve been to maybe 15 countries and [visited] a couple of them a couple times. I never would have imagined any of it.

I have the opportunity to talk to so many people from other countries as well, which is another thing I never expected. I could go on Twitch and just talk to anyone. I could be streaming and I could meet people from Brazil, South Korea, anywhere. They could be in my channel just talking to me and I think that’s super-cool.

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