cadiaN: "It's important for me to not try and replicate a Heroic 2.0"

YEKINDAR, cadiaN, skullz, and Twistzz joined the latest episode of HLTV Confirmed to discuss Liquid's roster overhaul.

A quartet of Liquid players joined HLTV Confirmed on Tuesday to discuss their recent roster overhaul, a change which saw just Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis and Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic kept from the organization's previous lineup.

Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller was pulled over from HEROIC to take over AWP and in-game leader duties for the new roster, Felipe "⁠skullz⁠" Medeiros was acquired for a reportedly hefty $600,000 buyout from paiN, Wilton "⁠zews⁠" Prado was made head coach and helped put the lineup together, and Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken returned to the team where he made a name for himself after nearly three years with FaZe.

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cadiaN and YEKINDAR kicked off the show together, with the latter breaking down what went wrong with Liquid's previous roster that featured Robert "⁠Patsi⁠" Isyanov, Aleks "⁠Rainwaker⁠" Petrov, and Josh "⁠oSee⁠" Ohm.

"We lost quite a lot," the Latvian rifler began. "I feel like the biggest problem was probably my leadership and lack of actual time where we could meet each other personally, on a personal level. There was this period of time where we had a bootcamp before tournaments for one-and-a-half weeks, and after that it was tournament after tournament.

"You're just playing and you're suddenly in this snowball of losing, fixing mistakes, and with the results you're getting a little bit tilted and frustrated, obviously. After the Pro League loss, we understood that this is not working. I personally got —necessarily — humbled in a way, definitely maybe not the strategic side of the game, but I completely vanished as a leader in that team.

"I think I was too harsh on some of the players, I was a little bit uncertain what to do in these moments when you're losing tournament after tournament after tournament. The only thing for me was specifically to focus on the game, fixing mistakes and whatever, but the whole problem was actually mental."

YEKINDAR also spoke about feeling like he and NAF "fell behind" in the 50-day period that Liquid were waiting for their changes to fall into place, with initial practices with the new team requiring the pair to adapt to playing proper team Counter-Strike again.

cadiaN then discussed joining Liquid, prefacing with a story about how he told YEKINDAR at IEM Dallas that the Latvian would regret taking over leadership. He clarified that point by saying that YEKINDAR is a top-10 player on his best days and balancing that with being an in-game leader is difficult, and he wanted YEKINDAR to keep doing what he was best at.

"From the outside, I thought that they would be getting better leadership with me coming in," the Dane said of his own move to Liquid. "I thought, also, a better AWPer. Then, I was very interested in the project, but when things started happening in the scene and there was the possibility of signing Twistzz too, that was when I was like, 'Okay, if you can get Twistzz, and I have NAF and YEKINDAR, I know this is going to be a freaking banger roster, boys.'"

Without diving into details about what offers he got specifically, cadiaN said he was humbled by the interest in him from other teams. He also talked about how the team debates internally, saying that he has had good conversations with YEKINDAR to challenge thoughts, and zews has helped manage that dialogue.

cadiaN praised Liquid and said that the team just kept getting better with each new addition he heard of, from the Brazilian coach to Edward "MindBodyEsports" Cleland, their performance manager, and spoke about what kind of style he wanted to bring to the team and the importance of getting players to buy into the "Heroic philosophy of doing everything together, like going out to play football."

"When we were starting to assemble the roster and we had a team chat with Russ [Twistzz], and one of the things that was important for Russ too was to build that kind of chemistry that was on Heroic, with people wanting to do things together and building a friendship outside of the server.

"He addressed it early on with Keith [NAF], and Keith is into that stuff, and actually he has impressed me a lot with the way he's wording things, the way he's buying into things, which doesn't seem like a Keith thing to do all these things.

"But I think Keith also realizes that this is the chance, if you want to get Liquid back to winning ways, these are the pieces you have to work around, and you have to be open to some kind of different approach as well. The last years have maybe not been as good as they would have hoped, they've not been terrible, but they've not been as good as people were hoping for, so that's one thing.

"You're talking about building the entire roster and what kind of playstyle and stuff like this, and I think, for me, one of the things was both inside and outside of the server, it's important for me to not try and replicate a Heroic 2.0. People here are different, different personalities, different cultures, all of these kinds of things.

"I will try and advocate for what I think gives a better team chemistry and what I believe will give us a higher chance of winning, and hopefully with the way I'm going to try and present things, people are going to buy into many of them. But I don't want people to do a lot of stuff that they don't feel comfortable with or that they don't like either, so we're trying to find a balance of that, both in terms of in-game, and outside of the game."

The Danish captain later talked about bringing together four different "schools" of Counter-Strike knowledge and how the roles break down, stating the balance was good but admitting that it would be a difficult task to bring those styles together. He also had high praise of skullz, the most unknown quantity on the new Liquid roster.

"This guy is a hidden gem boys, I'm telling you," cadiaN said to the panel. "Mechanically, he is quite a bit better than I thought, and mentally-speaking, in terms of taking criticism. One of the first things Wilton [zews] said was, 'jump along.' When people try to learn new things, when they do things, jump along and try to take in all the information and use it.

"skullz has been a very 'yes-man,' whether it was jumping in the cold ocean, going to the sauna, going to the gym, going here, or theorizing late nights, he's there, and he's willing to learn. For me, that's one of the most important parts of a young player, that kind of mindset of wanting to become better and wanting to listen, yet still having those moments where you say, 'Hey, but this is how I like to do things,' and he has impressed me a lot. He's a really great guy."

YEKINDAR said that he was getting deja-vu from his time playing with Dzhami "⁠Jame⁠" Ali when he first started playing and theorizing with cadiaN, and that he was shocked by how similar his former captain and cadiaN think and micro-manage on the server.

"As everyone knows, I respect Jame a lot, but Casper has actually exceeded my expectations of AWP IGL. I haven't played with Jame for two years now, so it's hard for me to tell on what level he is now, but I think Casper is doing a really great job. When I say Jame deja-vu, I mean in a good way."

Later in the show, YEKINDAR and cadiaN spoke more about the new Liquid, getting on the same page, giving NAF a longer leash, communication, and their lack of officials before the 2024 tournament season. The Latvian also praised Karim "⁠Krimbo⁠" Moussa and said Liquid had him on their shortlist, and revealed that Vitality, too, considered the German rifler to replace Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif.

skullz and Twistzz also made appearances to briefly discuss their integration into the team thus far, and talk over recent news and BLAST Premier World Final with Chad "⁠SPUNJ⁠" Burchill and Milan "⁠Striker⁠" Švejda.