YEKINDAR: "I learned the hard way after IGLing that social media kills your vibe in a way"

Liquid are 2-1 at the Americas RMR after a comfortable victory against BOSS.

The new-look Liquid have had an unconvincing start to their time together and began the season by coming short of qualifying through the BLAST Premier Spring Groups and missing out on a spot at IEM Chengdu.

Since then, they have shown steady progress and came into the RMR after earning their spot at IEM Dallas, but the jury was still out on the roster. A close-fought win against BESTIA and a loss against FURIA meant they found themselves in the 1-1 pool, with Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis's drop in individual form a big talking point.

Liquid then beat BOSS to get within one victory of the Major, and the win coincided with YEKINDAR's return to form on the server. After the game, the Lativan superstar spoke to HLTV about their RMR campaign, Liquid's adaptation to a new system, and his expectations for tomorrow's decider.

If you do not see the SoundCloud embed above, you can listen to the full interview here.

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You're now 2-1, a shaky start in the RMR but at least you're on the brink of qualification now. How are you feeling?

Overall, I feel okay. I had some personal stuff going into this tournament and now it's kind of settling out. Both games against BESTIA and FURIA, we had multiple advantageous situations where we could have helped ourselves to be cleaner, and even maybe win against FURIA on Mirage, but it's a matter of a LAN, it's a matter of an RMR, the pressure and everything. We had some mistakes in afterplants, some mistakes on entries, but overall it feels good to be 2-1. I'm not sure who we're facing afterward, but I hope we win, I hope we qualify. It's been a long road of open qualifiers and a lot of time in North America for practice.

I know Twistzz also mentioned those personal issues, if it's private just let me know, but are you able to expand on that at all?

It's nothing that bad like somebody died or something like this, it's just some private things in terms of... doesn't really matter.

You said it's been a long road in North America with all these open qualifiers and whatnot, something that you and Liquid weren't used to going through for quite a while. What has that experience been like?

Me and Keith [NAF] had the most experience with it, I went to NA a lot before. I went to the US 4-5 times last year, and for me it's not necessarily that bad, I'm kind of used to it. But of course, when Russ [Twistzz] comes from FaZe and Casper [cadiaN] comes from HEROIC, for them you come to LA and you can't even book two scrims, and if you can book them, then it's like the level of the enemies are obviously worse than in Europe.

I think for them it was a little bit of a shock but I think we got used to it before this RMR. We managed to use our time elsewhere, not necessarily in scrims, but maybe with theory and individual stuff. It's good that we qualified for Dallas, and I hope we are going to make the Major. After that, I think there is going to be less and less time needed to be spent in NA.

A lot of focus has been put on your performance in comments online. As you said, you had personal issues during these initial RMR games, but even when I was watching your matches online, it seems like you're still adjusting to the style of the game. How are you feeling with that? Yesterday there were times I watched you pushed Apartments smokes and whatnot, and it just looked uncomfortable.

I wouldn't say it's uncomfortable, I'd say it's different in a way. We have many voices on the team, I think everybody adapted in some way, and when everybody adapts, everybody removes some of their comforts to add someone else's comforts. It's basically a combination where everyone is kind of uncomfortable to make it comfortable for each other, and it's a matter of time until we get used to each other, get used to the game we're playing, get used to how we default, to what supportive grenades a player needs, get used to the system. In some moments we're still running around like noobs in a way because some of the situations are still new for us, but we review, we learn, and we take that as experience.

Can you tell me, just from your perspective outside of how the team is adjusting, how you feel in the system and adjusting to it?

Now it's a little bit better. Before, there was a little bit... because of the new team, we didn't have that much stuff, and it was hard to put a word in, in a way, in a round. I specifically play so aggressive, like these map control roles, and of course I can see some gaps that Casper doesn't see. Before it was a little bit harder to micro out how we do it, or 'Do we we want to do this? Oh, they have a smoke and molly left, we cannot do this.' Now with time, with practice and this situation that we had, there is a lot more input from me and Russ with suggesting where to go, what to do, and more understanding of when to suggest it, when do we need that and when do we not need that.

When the team was first created, there was talk about meshing these styles, and you also said on Confirmed that you realized switching to IGLing wasn't the right move for you. What's your voice on the team like now from that perspective? Twistzz also has a very active voice, and cadiaN is very active as well.

I talk less than when I was IGLing, but I still try to put input both in theory, in matches, or outside of the game. It is a lot more comfortable to play like that, in terms of not thinking about all the specific little things that matter for an IGL to make a good call. I learned a lot from both Casper and Russ, as you said about the styles, and there are completely different philosophies from all of us on the team.

Meshing those philosophies is not a fast thing because you don't necessarily know until the situation happens, and then you talk and you have different ways of thinking in some specific situations. But overall, from the start of this year there has been a lot of adaptation in terms of adapting to each other's philosophies, how we like to think, how we like to play the map, and how we like to play certain spots. It's been going really good.

As you said, it hasn't been a lot of time for this team, I think you only had your first bootcamp in the middle of December. WIth that, your early conversations were about how long it would take to mesh these styles. We're now almost three months into this, so what kind of timeline are you all looking at to reach that level of world-beaters that zews says you obviously eventually want to be?

It's hard to say. It's obviously also momentum-based, depending on the results it can either put you down and you're going to require more time, or it can put you up and you're going to require less time. If now it's been three months we've played together and we still feel we're not there yet, then I feel like if we would add another three months we would already be a really competent team in terms of being comfortable with each other and comfortable as a team.

We're doing the best we can to express our thoughts and not necessarily negotiate, but help each other in a sense of individual comfort and comfort in a team. Of course it's a little bit hard and a lot of work, and these times in NA don't really... you don't get as much good practice to have these talks about different situations as much as you would have in Europe. Sometimes it feels kind of rough because of that, that the progress slows down.

We were in Europe beforehand, and we were playing pretty good. I feel like we were in December and then we were one more time after BLAST, and I think we had incredible progress in both of those bootcamps. I feel like it slowed down a little bit both in terms of individual form of players, and our team form in terms of making us a little indecisive because we're not necessarily in the rhythm.

Talking just about the progress and the conversation around it, as I said there has been criticism because Liquid are expected to get results, I think people expected the team to hit the ground running here with the names on it. How much attention are you paying to that kind of criticism, individually or team-based?

I'm not reading social media that much anymore. I'm not sure, I just understand we need time, I understand everybody needs time individually, and there's obviously a lot of people who don't want to give time because we have the players, so just do it, like win, right? But it's never that easy. I just learned the hard way after IGLing that social media kills your vibe in a way.

As I said, you're 2-1, so one best-of-three away from qualifying for the Major, but also one best-of-three away from potentially being eliminated. What's the pressure like within the team going into this last match tomorrow?

I mean, obviously there is pressure because as you said, a team with these kind of players, the team that Liquid has gathered, obviously there is pressure. Not specifically pressure like, 'You guys have got to qualify' or whatever, but we understand. We need to qualify in a way, but I feel like everybody in this team is an experienced person, maybe skullz less, but by his mental and psychology, I would say that he's pretty experienced.

We have lost before and we understand that this FURIA loss that put us into this situation of being one win away from qualifying, one loss away from not qualifying, it's something that happens. If we put our pressure like, 'Oh, we're so close to losing,' we're not going to win the next game. That's the mentality, that's the mentality of the team, that's what we're focused on. We're focused on winning, and we're going to give it all to win.