EliGE: "I don't feel like we're that far away from winning championships"

The North American star rifler discussed the current situation at Liquid and gave an overview of what changed since last year.

Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski joined HLTV Confirmed on Tuesday to discuss the turbulent past year for himself and a Liquid roster that was underperforming, the changes that took place in late 2021, and where he sees the team going moving forward.

The segment kicked off with insights on what happened to the 2021 iteration of Liquid's roster and the challenges they faced internally, which eventually led to them having a rough time in most of their final events together, including the PGL Major Stockholm, where they only finished 12th-14th.

Liquid entered the year 2021 with a lot of hope, having signed two-time Major winner Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo as the team's new IGL, with Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella on his way to VALORANT. What was supposed to be a championship-caliber team eventually started faltering and not hitting the strides they had hoped for.

"I don't really feel like there was something that broke it or anything, it was going on for a while and we tried a lot of different things to try to fix it, going back-and-forth with switching IGL or leadership and different solutions," EliGE said on whether or not there was a final straw for the team and their lack of success. "I just think it wasn't going to work, the team just didn't think that it was going to work, and it just happened after the Major I think most people just wanted to have something set for what they wanted to do and move on."

"In terms of calling style, I think that we just weren't ever going to get on the same page of what we think is the correct answer to play a certain way," he explained when addressing Liquid's unstable year.

It was evident that switching things up was much needed within the team, and heading into 2022, Liquid fielded a revamped roster with the CS return of nitr0, the addition of veteran Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon, and a new AWPer in Josh "⁠oSee⁠" Ohm. EliGE spoke highly about the arrival of shox, saying that he was perfect for the team in his role as an aggressive lurker and thanks to the leadership he can bring.

When asked about the signing of oSee as the team's newest AWPer and how he has been performing in practice and in competitions, EliGE had a lot of high praise for the 22-year-old. "If every rookie in North America right now was working like oSee, we would have so many good players," he said. Jablonowski also commended oSee's communication in-game and his individual performance in practice, predicting that he would finish the year inside HLTV's Top 20.

With a new roster that has been performing well recently and a new dynamic within the team, EliGE belives that in the near future, his team will be competing for championships.

"We should definitely be able to win tournaments in the next three to four months, but I would say for us right now in the next month, we should be expecting to get out of groups and making playoffs, maybe making top four should be our big goals right now."

EliGE also took time to talk about their recent performance in the group stage of ESL Pro League, where Liquid qualified for the playoffs after achieving a 3-2 record. He mentioned that their matches against Movistar Riders and Gambit were difficult due to their rivals' style of play, and that the losses they incurred were constructive for the team's future matches.

The remainder of the episode touched on more news outside of Liquid, such as the struggles that Vitality have faced, his former teammate FalleN's new home in Imperial and the success they've seen, and the upcoming North American RMR.

You can watch the whole HLTV Confirmed episode featuring EliGE on YouTube, or listen in audio form via popular podcast apps.