Patsi on English communication: "With YEKINDAR on the team, it's so much easier"

Robert "⁠Patsi⁠" Isyanov says his similar playstyle with Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis allows the team more flexibility.

Patsi departed Spirit in the off-season, embarking on a new international journey with Liquid. He joined alongside Aleks "⁠Rainwaker⁠" Petrov, which resulted in the North American giants hosting a European-Majority squad for the first time in their CS:GO history.

The Russian rifler, who was present at PARI Dunav Party as an analyst, joined HLTV for a quick talk about his adjustment to English communication, his role clashes with YEKINDAR, and Liquid's expectations for the rest of the year.

You joined Liquid in the off-season as they transitioned to an international team. How has it been adjusting to a new environment?

It's the first time for me to be on an international team. And it's the first time that I'm speaking in English in the game, and outside of the game a lot. So it was not so easy for sure. In the game, it was easy to play because I was playing a lot of pugs, so I had a lot of words to say in-game. But outside of the game, sometimes it was hard to explain my view, especially when I'm the secondary caller on the team, it's harder to explain something. But now, it's getting easier, and I think it will keep getting easier.

If you had to put a percentage on how much you can communicate effectively, what would you say?

I think it's like 50%. Because, as well, we have Mareks [YEKINDAR] on the team who knows the Russian language, and he can translate hard words for me sometimes. So with him, it's so much easier.

Talking about YEKINDAR, he's now getting used to being the main IGL. What kind of a leader is he?

I think he's a really good IGL, he understands the game a lot. And a lot of things that I see in him, I'm seeing myself, because I was IGL as well in Spirit Academy, and I see a similar vision to him. Yes, of course, he has another view from CS and that's what I like in him because he's from the VP school and I'm from Spirit school, which are very different Counter-Strike styles. And when we are doing our game, some things are different, for sure, but it's fine because you can combine both and do better.

There was a lot said about you and YEKINDAR having similar roles in-game. How has the dynamic between you two been?

I mean, it's not bad because you have two players who can make space in a game. For example, if one of us has a bad game, he can go second after the first guy, so we can change roles with each other. So I can say there isn't a problem with that because you need to have two space creators in a match. And for the CT side, it doesn't matter, because you have different spots, with YEKINDAR we had all different spots before Liquid. We maybe changed one or two positions, but that's it. And for the T-side, it was not hard to adapt.

You also went from a CIS organization to an NA one. What is the biggest difference between both organizations?

I have to say, I really like Spirit as an organization. But Liquid is a new level of organization because when you're coming to their facility, you feel like there's a lot of unbelievable things. It's like you're coming into a football team's facility. And it's amazing how they're creating their organization and working with players.

Another change for you now is that you play fewer games than you did before in Spirit. How do you find that, do you enjoy the extra practice time?

I mean, we're not playing much less than in Spirit. When we were in tier one with Spirit, we were not playing a lot of tournaments because we didn't have a BLAST spot, for example, we were not a partner team. And so I think about official matches, we have something similar to before. But now it's like the end of CSGO, and there are fewer tournaments.

It's good for us because we're like a new team and we need to play more and we're trying to find our game. We are still trying to do it. I mean, I think we are much better than we were before BLAST and Cologne. We were playing in Gamers8 against ENCE, which was not bad in my opinion. On the second map, we lost 16-5 or something like that, but we didn't play Anubis in official matches before this game. So, in my opinion, we're improving, and we just need a bit more time to show ourselves.

What are your goals for the end of this year? What do you want to achieve as a team?

I think the first goal is just to show we are competitive and that we can beat top teams and compete at the top level of CS. So for now, just show that and try to qualify for the playoffs. Now we're preparing for EPL and we will try to do that.