nitr0: "It feels like we are gaining our confidence back"

Following Liquid's victory over Evil Geniuses, we talked with Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella about his team's last few months and regaining confidence.

After nearly a month of inactivity and a couple of subpar events before that, Liquid are back in the playoffs of a Big event, defeating Ninjas in Pyjamas and Evil Geniuses to top group A at ECS Season 8 Finals

We spoke to nitr0 about the first day in Arlington, Texas, the atmosphere within the team, and their bootcamp in Complexity facilities.

This was a good day for you guys, getting two wins, going to the playoffs straight away. Did you miss having good days like this, having some confident wins?

Yeah, of course. I think it just banks off of us having a good bootcamp, having good online practice in the last couple of weeks. We are actually feeling very confident for this tournament and the next two as well, I don't know, we just felt like we have that good vibe again within the team, everyone is hitting their shots in practice and stuff, it feels like we are gaining our confidence back.

Talking about the vibe, what changed since Malmö and Copenhagen, those results that were pretty poor for you guys, the sentiment that came after it was that the result was expected, that something wasn't clicking right. How did you change that?

I don't think anything necessarily changed, it was just a wake up call. Us playing so bad, it was like "let's get our sh*t together, let's put in more work in practice". Just having more team talks, ironing out all of our mistakes which we made in-game which we kept putting off. It really came to fruition here.

What did you do over the last three-four weeks? You were bootcamping in NA, didn't go to Europe, what was the thinking there?

Our thinking was that instead of going to Europe, because we are going to be in Europe for the last quarter of the year, to come to Texas. Complexity was nice enough to lend us their facility and it was really cool to be there. We are very happy to get a bootcamp in even if it was five days. Just being together, being in Texas as well, was really nice for us. I mean, a bootcamp in Europe is always nice but it doesn't make sense for our schedule for this year.

Regarding the schedule, you skipped IEM Beijing, you wanted to go but pulled out, and you skipped StarSeries before that. Are you happy with how the schedule worked out for the last quarter of the year?

We talked about our schedule for the whole year and unfortunately, China was at a bad time for us and our team internally. These last three tournaments are really big, we worked really hard for them, so we will see how it goes.

What is the feeling about this event after going to the playoffs? Is it time for you guys to come back to the top?

Yeah, I think this is definitely the event, we'd like to win these last three if we can and we definitely worked on our issues, in and out of game, and we are feeling pretty confident. I won't say that it is like when we were winning every tournament in like July, but we are definitely gaining it back and we can feel it withing the team, we talked about it.

Touching on the Evil Geniuses game, obviously the rivalry is there in NA, they overtook you recently. How does winning this game affect the rivalry between the teams?

We've always had close games against EG or NRG, it is always fun playing them, we yell at eachother throughout the game, it is all fun and games. They have been playing really well, we've been studying them a lot - since they have been playing really well, beating top teams, winning tournaments. I don't know, I think they weren't at their 100% this game because — I know it sounds dumb — but their bodies are still getting used to different time zones all the time. They went to China, came back to the US, went to China again, and that just destroys you mentally. Honestly, we've all been there and it sucks, but it was their decision. I'm still happy we won.

You are saying they are jetlagged even thought they are in NA?

They might be. (laughs)

Lastly, is there something that you want to accomplish at this event or maybe the next one, not in terms of placings or winning, but in terms of how you play as a team? Is there something you want to see developing and shown on the server?

I just want to make sure that the we don't lose to ourselves, that we lose to the opponent, and that the team that is playing better that day will win the tournament. We had some hiccups at the last events but we ironed them out and now we are feeling very confident again. I just think that making a final here would be very good for us right now.