NAF: "With how we're performing, we're just happy that we made it"

Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic feels Liquid's current lineup have hit their worst patch of form.

Since taking an impressive top-four finish at IEM Katowice, Liquid have struggled to find their groove. They suffered losses to Rare Atom and Spirit in the group stage of EPL before being knocked out in the first round of playoffs by paiN, and they were bested in the BLAST Spring Showdown by the very same team.

Nonetheless, the North American squad was expected to qualify for the BLAST Paris Major and they did so, getting the job done with wins over 00NATION, Flamengo and Nouns. Despite being the only team ranked inside the top 10 however, they were unable to secure the Legends Stage berth on offer after a loss to FURIA.

With Liquid's RMR campaign behind him, NAF took some time out for an interview with HLTV to chat about his side's recent underwhelming form.

Finally you're through to the Major — I saw some less than jubilant reactions after you won the match, making it through was something that is expected of Liquid, so how are you feeling now that you've actually made it through?

Yeah of course it feels great to qualify, that pressure is off our shoulders that we finally did it, you know? Right now I think as a team, we have a lot to work on of course, individually myself I feel like I was underperforming as well. I had a good first day and after that it was really hard to play.

I think it just comes down to our lack of practice you know, bootcamping in EU and all that, but we can't make no excuse. Nouns doesn't have no European bootcamp or anything like that, so at the very least we should be winning 2-0 with the players that we have. Individually and as a team I feel a little down right now, but like I said it feels good to make it through, and we can actually go to Europe, practice before the Major, feel better and reach new heights with our team because we're pretty down right now but I'm sure we'll bring it back with more practice.

When you say you're pretty down right now, do you just mean in terms of the results, or is the mood in the team as a whole kinda down?

No, I think the mood in the team is good, it's just... yeah, it's just the results and the way we're losing rounds, the way we've lost games. Even like the FURIA game, we could have 2-0'd them on Inferno, I think there were some moments where I maybe made some mistakes, and I was just like maybe if I didn't make those mistakes we would've won 16-14, you know? Especially when I play bad and I make mistakes, I'm really hard on myself, I think that's also what makes me more of a consistent player because I am realistic with myself.

Overall as a team, I think we're fine, but we obviously aren't blind, we clearly see that we're not playing... I think this is probably the worst as a team that we're playing right now, it's just not really gelling too well right now and like I said, maybe it's lack of practice, lack of playing, but again we don't have any excuses when it comes to playing teams like Nouns because they don't have that infrastructure like we do at Liquid, so we just need to do better in the future.

With all that infrastructure, is it just a matter of you not having as much European experience recently as you said, because you were at EPL and whatnot, so what would be the reasoning on your side for that?

Yeah I mean, before EPL we didn't bootcamp at all, I think we just practiced online and I think we only had one bootcamp this year. I think it was before Katowice or before the BLAST groups or something like that, we literally only had one for like a week I think. We haven't had too much practice, especially versus Europeans, of course we have played a lot of officials especially at EPL so we have played European teams, it's just... like our coordination and all our fundamentals just as a team simply just aren't at 100%, and right now it honestly feels like we're playing at 50%. There's still a lot more for us to improve on, and clearly we can tell just by playing the games, and I'm sure by the fans watching the games.

Because you didn't go 3-0, you didn't have a chance at the Legends spot here. The last Major kinda ended in heartbreak for you, does missing out on a Legends spot here set you back a lot, or how do you feel about going into the Major and having to start from the Challengers stage?

Honestly, we actually came in, obviously our goal was to make Legends of course, and obviously the benefit is being in the Legends capsule, there's a lot more money in the Legends capsule, but that's not something we're focused on. I guess the plus side of having the Challengers stage is that if we show up and we play well in the Challengers stage, we have the warmup compared to maybe all the other teams that are sitting in Legends.

That's how we felt at the Rio Major where we just felt like, especially when we came into that first game versus MOUZ at the Major, it was just like holy shit, we're so flat right now, we need to wake up. Whereas if we do well in the Challengers and we're able to qualify into the Legends stage, I'm sure that will give us a lot more confidence going into the main tournament. So yeah, obviously making the Challengers has its negatives, has its positives and vice versa with the Legends you know, but honestly at the end of the day with how we're performing, we're just happy that we made it.

It seems like a lot of the top teams are struggling a little bit, not sure if you've seen FaZe in the EU RMR, even Virtus.pro is eliminated. Is the general overall level of play just down right now, or is it that other teams have come up a lot, why do you think it's so much harder right now with the qualifiers that are happening?

I just believe the game hasn't changed at all, it hasn't evolved in any specific meta or anything like that, whereas before, at the start, the way the game was played was changing a lot back in the day. I'm speaking like 2014, 2015, a lot of teams didn't know how to play, only the top teams knew how to play, and then like 2017-2018 a lot of people were starting to get a grip on how to do things, and then they had the Krieg meta, then they had the AUG meta.

Ever since then it's like nothing has really changed, you don't see any crazy meta or any crazy new strategies in the way that people are playing. Right now it's all about mind games, and like I said, the game hasn't changed too much so a lot of these players that have been playing for a long time and are just sitting around and just constantly playing, they can just catch up. There's nothing really too different about it, whereas with the addition of CS2 coming out, there's obviously going to be a lot more ways to play the game especially with all the smokes and all that. It's just that other teams are just performing better and getting better, and you can only do so much in Counter-Strike. People are going to catch up, it's all about who has the smarter players on the team and who can play under pressure.