EliGE: "Leaving Liquid had nothing to do with being based in Europe"

The North American rifler discussed his switch from Liquid to Complexity, the state of Counter-Strike 2, and much more on HLTV Confirmed.

Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski was removed from Liquid in the summer season, which ended his eight-year stint with the organization. With no shortage of options, he moved to Complexity, where his presence has visibly improved the squad's performance and led to them making the BLAST Premier Fall Final 2023 over his former teammates. The 26-year-old appeared on HLTV Confirmed on Monday and reflected on his time in Liquid during the show's opening segment.

"It was part of who I was, not only that I played for them but I felt a part of the organization," he said. "It would be hard to rip off the bandaid if they didn't make their own decision. I love Liquid as an organization, I like the players and everyone there, but it wasn't working out."

Despite his love for Liquid, EliGE admitted his removal made sense. "It was the right call for them to replace me. Everyone on the team should be finding solutions together, and that was something we didn't have at the end. It was more about the coach and IGL finding the stuff, compared to everyone finding it.

"I was looking to Mareks [YEKINDAR] about what I should do, and it made me too reliant on him," EliGE said, taking responsibility for his inaction. "It's my own fault that I relied on him too much and didn't find my own solutions."

EliGE then touched on the rumors of his reluctance to move to Europe, and the 26-year-old admitted he almost signed for an EU-based Evil Geniuses project in the summer. "During the player break, I was ready to do that," he began. "I was talking to EG, which was going to be an EU-based team.

"Leaving Liquid had nothing to do with being based in Europe. If I was gonna stay on Liquid and the team was going well, I would have gone to Europe for Liquid. It had nothing to do with them wanting to be EU and me NA. I don't wanna go there for a year and upend my whole life, but I was ready to do it for the right team."

After his Evil Geniuses move collapsed, the 26-year-old joined fellow North Americans Complexity. "They're giving me a lot of respect from the moment I joined," he said, comparing it to Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis's reception in Liquid.

"They had a lot of really good things and really good pieces, and they just needed some specific things to help them out. All the ideas they had were really good, and they have a lot of trust in me to come in and try to fix everything. They take my suggestions to heart, and it's been working really well."

The debate then transitioned to the recent release of CS2. Complexity will get their first test of competitive action in the new game at IEM Sydney, and EliGE expects a chaotic tournament. "I think it's going to be crazy, it's all about who thought of the best things fast enough. I was already theory crafting for CS2 while we were in Liquid, so we have a lot of cool things that are going to be a lot of fun to play around with. I'm pretty excited, as long as there's no crazy bugs that completely ruin the experience. I hope those all get fixed."

When asked about what he would change in the new game, EliGE proposed a small adjustment. "I'm going to go the VALORANT route, the minimum loss bonus should be $1900. I think it's pretty lame if you have to eco twice in this low amount of rounds in a half. It's the easiest change to make that won't impact the game too much.

"It's not fun when you have so many limited rounds because of MR12. We're probably going to see a similar amount of saves that we did before, because guns are so much more important. If you're about to get broken and go on a double eco, of course you're going to save. Maybe there will be even more saving from the teams that weren't doing it before."

EliGE then talked about his dissatisfaction with the game's sound and said that it makes vertical maps such as Vertigo and Nuke nearly impossible to play. "In terms of bugs, I think the sound is such a problem. Vertigo needs to go as soon as possible, that's a map that highlights how bad the sound is. I don't like this thing where they block sound based on a wall being there, it's so hard to hear things."

EliGE touched on whether his age is a liability or an asset in CS and a host of other topics, some more fun and others more serious, throughout the show. You can find the complete VOD embedded above, or you can click here to head directly to the video on the HLTV YouTube channel.