daps: "Right now our goal is to try and peak as much as we can in Pro League"

Liquid bootcamping to fill the holes in their game with the goal of finding peak form at ESL Pro League.

We sat down to talk with Liquid's coach, Damian "⁠daps⁠" Steele, after his team was eliminated from the IEM Cologne Play-in. Sadly, it happened in the do-or-die match against 9INE on the Canadian skipper's 30th birthday.

Early victories by this iteration of Liquid with Robert "⁠Patsi⁠" Isyanov and Aleks "⁠Rainwaker⁠" Petrov against teams of the stature of G2 and FaZe at BLAST Premier Fall Groups set high expectations early on, but since then the team failed to make it out of the Fall Groups or the IEM Cologne Play-in alive.

daps talked about what it was like setting up this new international Liquid, what it has been like bringing two new players to the fold, and what plans the team has to try and hit their best form at ESL Pro League.

You're known to have built teams going all of the way back to bringing mixwell to North America, your time in NRG, this rebuild with Liquid now... What was the process in creating this majority European side like?

The process started when nitr0 said he was stepping down and quitting. We went to Dallas and it was a kind of whatever event because of the situation in the team. The process of getting Rainwaker in first was... You know, we just needed an anchor, someone to fill nitr0's roles. Even though on strats he was entrying, he was on the edge of the map in a lot of the maps, like Mirage, Anubis, etc., and he was anchoring every map.

We just went through and looked at as many players as we could. To be honest, most of the players we wanted or were interested in were more like EliGE's replacements. We couldn't really find any sort of anchor for the role that we liked a lot, so we saw Rainwaker and we liked how he played.

Obviously, it's a risk to some extent because he hasn't played tier 1 before. I tried to do as much digging as I could from people I know in Bulgaria just to figure out sort of how his personality is, but again, you don't know, right? Overall that was the process for him.

The process for Patsi was sort of... Between EliGE and the team it was fairly mutual. I think just EliGE sort of felt like he couldn't play the way he wanted to and there was conflicting ideas in a lot of scenarios. Even though Complexity didn't do too well here, I think long term it can be better for his career and for our team. Then the process started to get a replacement for him.

We looked through all of our options for that role and we had a lot of options for EliGE's replacement, but at the end of the day some players you can't get, some you can get, and we just remembered about Patsi. At the start of the scouting, he hadn't played in Spirit for a little bit, and I was just like... Patsi! He literally just owned us for all of last year or whatever.

There were concerns about the language barrier. Neither of them played in international teams before and that's usually a pretty big leap. Even when I played with mixwell and with CeRq, they eventually got to the point where they could play in international teams, but the beginning was always a little bit rough. Their reaction time to communication wasn't the best and they're not able to comm as quick in those split second decisions. So we knew going forward that it would be a bumpy road at the start. We've have some up and downs, but it's all a learning experience.

At least from the eye test it does seem that there's a potential for something to develop. As you said maybe there are some circumstances that make it hard, but how do you feel after your first few officials? What developments are happening and do you see that potential flourishing for Liquid throughout the season?

Sure, I'd say the main developments are obviously Patsi and Rainwaker, getting used to being in an international team, getting used to a different system. Those are two big things to get used to, and then also YEKINDAR being full-time in-game leader. Even though he was helping nitr0 before during games at times, he wasn't the full IGL. It's different when you're the leader, everything falls on you now. It's another thing that is part of the development process, as you said.

Those are the main things, I'd say. NAF is stable, not much changed for him. He's sort of used to it. oSee, obviously, he plays the same spots. It's not too much of an adjustment for him. Those are the three big ones, I'd say.

Speaking of YEKINDAR taking over leadership. In his previous roles he was a very aggressive guy. Patsi is now kind of taking over. How do you see his adjustment, reinventing himself as a player?

There's a lot of graphs and stuff people make in terms of showing aggressiveness and passiveness, but the reality is that when YEKINDAR joined our team, initially, he was playing some lurk spots. He's not the one-dimensional player he's sometimes made out to be, where it's like 'Oh, he can only play aggressive.' He's a player who has very good comms and Patsi is a perfect replacement to take some of those aggressive roles, it gives him some more freedom to call.

Sometimes when you're IGL, you're kind of AFK, you're not looking at your crosshair. You have to organize things, manage things, so in my opinion it makes sense to do that and it's something he also wanted. He can also be in more clutch situations now, which he's good at coordinating and being alive. That was sort of the logic, there.

One big part of any big change is of course what happens in the server, getting all of the roles sorted, etc. A big component is also what happens outside of the server, how people get along. How's the chemistry?

I'd say it's gone as well as it can, given the circumstances. We've had nine days, roughly, before BLAST. We played all seven maps, initially, just to figure out what maps fit best or not. So, you know, that's a lot of long 12-14 hour days trying to figure everything out and there wasn't too much time left for team bonding, going out and doing something together, which I like to do at the start of new people coming in.

Due to scheduling it just wasn't possible, but overall, out of the game, everyone gets along. There's no huge issues or anything like that in terms of culture, but you know, it's still a learning period. We're learning about each other out of the game, we're learning about each other in the game, there could be more role changes in the future, so there's a lot of things we're just trying to learn, to build a good foundation, and CS2 will probably come out soon anyways, so it's a big learning period right now.

Compared to teams you've had in the past that have gone through these phases. How do they compare?

I'd say the biggest difference is that I haven't coached for that long, I've coached for about a year. I don't count the EG stint, to be honest. It's definitely a different dynamic when you're not in the server during games. That's something that I'm still working on and trying to figure out what's best because during live games coaches are super limited in terms of the impact they can have.

I'm just focused on trying to do as much as I can so the team is ready for the game and they don't have to rely as much on me during the game because for most coaches it's hard to get your voice heard. You can't say anything mid-round anymore, you can't call, so that's really been the biggest difference in terms of building a team as a coach, whereas before I was an IGL in the game.

Happy birthday, by the way, the big 30! Unfortunately, a bit of a birthday curse?

Yeah, it was a meme in some of my old teams, the birthday curse. Other teams have this meme, as well. I know it's not a real thing, but it is a real thing. [laughs]

You suffered a hard lost against 9INE. Did you feel like you should have it in the bag before going into it? What happened?

I feel like every team we've played, other than G2 and FaZe, who we beat initially and were probably the games we expected to lose the most... Maybe expectations increased instantly with the G2 and FaZe wins, then we felt the instant pressure of 'Oh, this team is expected to beat these teams consistently all of the time,' when the reality is that we're in that new team stage where we're still figuring things out.

I think it's different from when you get a new team and you can get that honeymoon with a full team from the same region — it's a bit easier to get that honeymoon because you have the same culture, same language, all of that. So we have a lot of other factors that are sort of hampering us at the start, I'd say. It'll just take some time and over time it'll get better and better, that's the reality.

For a team like Liquid, missing out on IEM Cologne is probably a pretty big hit. At the same time, you are going through what you're going through. What was your first reaction to this disappointment?

We set expectations and goals when everyone initially came in and our expectation at the moment is to start peaking at Pro League, so we gave the first three events — BLAST Groups, Cologne and Riyadh — as our buffer period to figure everything out and get our map pool down as much as we can.

In reality there's still some maps we still haven't scrimmed that much, just because we haven't had much time and based on match-ups some maps get put on the backside compared to others. Right now our goal is to try and peak as much as we can in Pro League, whether it's CS2 or not. it would change expectations if CS2 just comes out randomly, but for CS:GO at least, until it ends, the main goal is Pro League and trying to give the best performance we can there.

What's next for Liquid? You're spending more time in Europe, so that'll also be an adaptation for a few of you.

Yeah, we're in a situation where we can't just go back home or take a break. We're going to bootcamp before Riyadh and we just need to play as much as we can. That's the reality.

There's a lot of holes in our game, things we have to fix and change and edit, so the main goal right now is to bootcamp, play as much as we can, learn as much as we can — about each other and the team —, and try to show our best self in Riyadh and the events after.