Stewie2K: "I'm going to use what I learned here so that I don't have to deal with the same stuff again in the future"

We spoke to the Liquid rifler ahead of the team's BLAST Premier Fall Final appearance.

Liquid enter the BLAST Premier Fall Final on their last legs, a roster assuredly damned to go their separate ways by the end of the year. The team have won just a single event in 2021, facing solely domestic competition in cs_summit 8, and have struggled to make many deep runs in their other tournament appearances, falling by the wayside among the stronger European crop of competition.

On the media day ahead of Liquid's opening match against Vitality, Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip broke down some of the issues the team have faced and tried to overcome in the past year, providing some insight into the trading of in-game leadership duties with Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo.

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The 23-year-old also gave his thoughts on playing with Michael "⁠Grim⁠" Wince, and spoke about Liquid's dismal showing at the Major, pointing towards issues that compounded throughout the year.

I wanted to start with the team's outlook coming into this event. I know EliGE said on stream that you haven't been practicing and the roster is obviously on its way out with you and FalleN reportedly looking for other opportunities, so what are Liquid looking at doing coming into this event given the circumstances?

I'm pretty sure it's self-explanatory in itself, especially with what EliGE said on stream. We haven't been practicing, so coming into this tournament we probably have no expectations at all. It's no secret that this team is going to make changes anymore, whatever is out there, true or not, for us we're just coming here and we know that a dead team walking can be very deadly for other teams. We can either do very well and achieve what we wanted this year that we couldn't, or it's just going to go out the same way that we've already been going, so our expectations are almost zero to none.

I wanted to touch on the IGL trade between you and FalleN, it happened three, maybe four times since he joined. What was that whole process like for you and what caused that juggle to keep happening?

When FalleN came in, he came in a little behind on the meta, and for us Liquid had an identity, a foundation. When you see Liquid play, they have a certain style, and it's what represents Liquid throughout all of these years, even before I joined. The thing that stood out with me the best is that they always play together, and their trade percentages are always one of the best up there. When FalleN joined, I think that he wanted to implement his system completely, and for me I felt like that was not the best idea ever because Liquid always had this identity where they always play trades, that's their strong suit. So we always tried to implement some things, we tried to work together and put Liquid and what FalleN works with well together, mesh it all in one.

I had a lot of disagreements with him, and EliGE did as well. Before FalleN joined we really needed people to step up to the plate, be a leader, act as a leader. Some just can't. The personalities, you can't really change it, and you can't expect changes so quick, so that's something that we struggled on and why we needed a player like FalleN. Once we added him in, FalleN always thought that I had a good mind and that I surprised him a little bit in the IGL role, so maybe I should go back to calling so that he can have this freedom where he can just AWP and focus on his game, maybe he can take a little bit away from what I'm calling, what I can see that he can't see, that's why we made the swap back-and-forth. Then eventually, I was struggling a little bit, and people liked the way that FalleN was calling again, so we decided that maybe FalleN can just have this shot again, and this time we're really going to let him implement his style.

For me, I think that letting him do all of it created a lot of extra problems that a lot of us didn't agree with inside of the game, and we tried to work it out but with the amount of personalities that we have and so many clashes, it's hard to come down to an agreement and settle on something.

What sort of extra problems did it create, if you're able to go into specifics?

The best way to explain it is that if I'm the IGL initially, there's going to be a set of problems that people won't agree with, that I'm calling, and those are things that we can work on. But once you let FalleN completely take over and it's a style that most of us aren't used to, and that most of them can't see what FalleN wants to think, that creates a new set of problems. It comes down to if people agree that we should continue playing the same way, if we're happy playing the same way, and it's very clear that people weren't happy playing that way.

For me it really comes down to having conversations and just not going through the tension, going through the unnecessary things in order to reach that end goal where you need to go. It's more having this process that you can really enjoy and see that at the end of the day that you're just improving, but when you are blindsided by other things, it can cause a lot of tension, it can cause a lot of different things where it can hinder the process or really put a big step back to it.

You touched on it a little bit there mentioning some personality conflicts, it's something that's been spoken about on social media and on platforms, whether it all has merit behind it or not. Without going into specifics if you can't, what exactly does that involve on the team for you personally, and has it been blown out of proportion or is it something that's genuinely having a massive impact on the team?

At the moment it's a little blown out of proportion. I think feelings come and go, feelings are something you can't really change in the moment, but eventually it's going to settle down and you're going to see past it, you're going to see with a more outside perspective of the situation that you were in. But with our team, the best I can explain it is... before I go into it, I don't want to be telling the fans or whoever is going to read this that I'm comparing our team to the Lakers, or a LeBron James, or Russ Westbrook, but it's very similar in terms of you seeing how the Lakers started this season and their success.

You see so many stars on this team that they should be the ones winning the conference, the ones that shine the most. They should have the most success, but you put so many stars on one team and they can't come to a settlement, you can't come to an agreement. I'm sure that if you see a player like LeBron or a player like Russ Westbrook who are both very accomplished players, they come into a team, I'm sure they have strong personalities as well and I'm sure that Russell Westbook is not going to go into LeBron's way. I'm sure they're going to have arguments here and there in how they should play the game, and it comes down to see how it's going to settle and if they can come to an agreement.

For us, I'd say it's the same way. We have so many stars that we're struggling to find the right pieces for everybody, and for everybody to be happy. In the long run, it's best that we go our separate ways and for us, I think it's just better that in the future, it's a learning experience and it shows what you need in a team, it gives you a clearer picture for your future.

Touching on that a little more, Grim was obviously a star player on Triumph before you picked him up, he was one of the most promising upcoming players at the time. Both with his role back then and now, how has that meshed with Liquid specifically, and what're your impressions of him as a player now that you've had the chance to play with him for a while?

The thing about Mike (Grim) is that he's a great kid. I think his work ethic can be a lot better, he can work a lot harder for where he is as a player and where he stands right now, with the amount of inexperience, the amount of times you have to really hold his hand and guide him to the right areas. He's not really learning on his own. Initially Mike was not in the roster talks before we picked him up, we weren't able to get the roster that we wanted, and we were stuck with missing a fifth player so we really needed one to stand-in. For us Mike was on a trial phase and for me, I felt like it was kind of forced on to our roster. I think Mike just came in at the wrong time, the wrong place, and it wasn't the best experience for him, but I'm sure he definitely learned a lot from us and just being able to play internationally.

Mike in general, he's like any type of up-and-coming player, I've talked about it on stream before where all of these up-and-coming players, all they have is really aim, and initially when Mike was put into our roster and we needed to use him, I was not okay with it because I did not want to waste my time hoping that this player can pick it up fast, learn, and become this experienced player that we really need. So for us we kind of struggled, it brought in another set of problems that shied us away from focusing on the core's problems. That added an extra problem for us.

I think Mike is a good player, he definitely has potential, but he just joined the team at the wrong time and we weren't able to really give him the best chance we possibly could. At the same time, implementing him on the team, there's a lot of role clashes too, Mike is a "superstar" player for his past teams, and for us we have EliGE, I'm very aggressive as well, so we really needed a passive player. For me when I was calling, I cannot be on the other side of the map and trying to call something, so we needed Mike to learn that. For me, he was a very slow learner, it kind of hurt us a bit in the long run, but we work with what we can.

As you mentioned, there's a lot of players who focus more on star roles, being the next big thing. What are your thoughts on the way talent is developed in North America and where we should be going, because right now we're in a pretty shit spot, to say the least.

It's a tough spot. With North American talent, I feel like the gap just drops immensely when it comes from tier one to the next tier. It's really hard to say the next up and coming talent, like I said before the way I look at them is if they have the potential to pick it up quick, if they're open minded, if their work ethic is hard.

I've always liked a player who's had a very strong mentality, like a killer mentality, and they come in and they're like a sponge. They want to absorb everything, they have questions to ask, they want to get better. But the majority of players, a lot of the times it's about their duels, their aim, and for me at a certain level your aim can only go so far, your IQ needs to be up there as well.

That's the main thing about up-and-coming players, most of the time the player has the ability to learn but their mechanics aren't the best, or their mechanics are insane but they don't really have the ability to learn as fast. It is really hard right now in the NA scene, I think that's why we're going back to this phase where, even before I joined, we're recycling players, we're not looking too deep into the next up-and-coming talent because like I said, there's really no talent that you see that "oh, this guy is going to learn super fast" where you're going to take the time, try to raise these players so that we can succeed. I don't think a lot of teams and a lot of players want to waste that time to see if there's a possibility for this player to help us succeed.

Tied into that, what do you think needs to happen to create that mindset for new players, is there a cultural change that needs to happen in the region?

It's not a cultural change. Teams like Extra Salt and Bad News Bears, even though in my opinion they're not the strongest teams out there in North America right now, they have made their name known and they have qualified for events in Europe. Back when I was on Cloud9, before we could even make top four, do any of that, making it to a European tournament internationally is almost a blessing in disguise, in terms of this is where you play the best teams in the world, and where you can actually learn something. Everything just kind of clicks at one point, like this is the style that they want to play and I'm going to try to learn from it.

I think that is the best way for the next up-and-coming talent to learn from, it's all about the grind honestly, and it's all about the path that you're on and how you're going to learn from it and grow from it. Once you make it to the international level, there's a lot of room to watch and learn, I think that's the best way to look at it.

Most top tournaments have entirely shifted over here and that's just going to be the reality for the next year or two years. For you personally, since you're considering other opportunities as well, how does it feel for you and affect your decision in terms of playing here for extended periods, potentially even moving, and having more events here?

It's definitely a hard decision to make and there's a lot to consider. There's a lot of travelling this year, I think this was one of the toughest years in terms of travel. A couple weeks home, a couple weeks back, and then a month back, and then you only go back home for a couple of weeks... there's really no time to decompress. By the time you get used to your schedule at home, you're about to leave again.

Travelling is really hard, living in Europe is definitely something to consider. That's just the reality of the situation like you said. I don't really have much to touch on there, it's really about the individual, how much competitive spirit you have and how much you want to really give into it. If you want to go all-in and there's no thought behind it, you know that going to Europe is no issue and most of your time is going to be spent there, you're going to put a lot of effort into it.

The one thing I haven't really touched on was your performance at the Major, which obviously didn't go as you would have hoped I'm sure. You didn't have adreN there, and on top of that the team fell pretty flat in your matches — what happened there, since the team seems to have crumbled since then, how large of an impact did that have?

Throughout this year we kept going back and forth on the same issues, every time. It's always this, it's always something else, it just becomes a reoccurring thing and I'm sure it becomes very tiring for everybody. Once we keep going back to the same problem and a month later, the same problem occurs again, and you try to approach it, you try to talk about it, you come to an agreement that things are going to be better, and then you keep coming back to it, it can be very tiring. At the same time we have other problems to worry about.

By the time we got to the Major, there's already been a big amount of time that we've created this team, so going to the Major I think it got to the point where we just knew that it's coming to an end, where things aren't really going to fix, things aren't really going in the direction that FalleN is seeing or I'm seeing or EliGE is seeing, and we can't come to an agreement, so in the end it's better to just go our separate ways. A new start is a new start.

For me personally, this is a learning experience, I learned a lot playing on Liquid in terms of personalities and playing as a collective whole. Being able to go through failures together and being able to succeed together, I've learned a lot in that aspect, and I'm going to use what I learned here so that I don't have to deal with the same stuff again in the future. I'm going to try to do my best to prevent what I've experienced, I don't want anyone else to experience.