Twistzz: "When we came to this event I felt like we were a championship contender"

Twistzz is supremely confident in the level of his Liquid squad.

Liquid's new-look side hit the ground running in emphatic fashion after the player break, and they have continued that trend in Malta by marching to the quarter-finals in convincing fashion.

Bar a 1-2 loss to Vitality, Liquid have been indomitable, and they cast aside Complexity with ease in their latest match to secure a mouth-watering quarter-finals tie with G2. Liquid's win over Complexity featured everything you'd want as a Liquid fan: A revitalized showing from Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis, superstar numbers from Roland "⁠ultimate⁠" Tomkowiak, and proficiency across both sides of the map.

Clearly in high spirits after his team's performance, Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken sat down for an interview with HLTV to discuss Liquid's run at Pro League so far, the improvements they have made on Nuke, and just how his team were able to get up to speed so quickly with the new lineup.

If you cannot see the SoundCloud embed above, listen to the interview here.

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Congratulations, you must be happy with that result?

Oh for sure, definitely happy. I guess Cologne counted as a top eight but it didn't feel that way, but now it really feels like a real playoff win here.

Nuke was completely one-sided, you utterly smashed them. It's a map you actually got beaten on quite handily by Vitality earlier in the tournament, so what did you change to flip the result around in this case?

In general a pattern for us on Nuke has been a lack of cohesion and knowing how to move around the map, when to get info, when not to. It's just something that's been heavily talked about in the past days, both our off days were focused on tidying up our map pool and Nuke was one of the points that we touched on. I'm very happy with how my Outside players played today, and in general how people communicated and moved, it makes me proud.

I was going to say, YEKINDAR had an amazing map on Nuke. In general he's had a bit of a slump in recent times, but he looks like he's starting to work his way out of it. Does it look like that to you as well?

Of course, there's a reason he's here. He's a player that has a ton of potential and I think as long as he's able to hit his stride and… I guess accept more help from others within the team, to talk about positions and stuff, then I think there's so much growth there and opportunity for him.

The casters were saying, when you were playing that game, that Liquid are in championship form. Does it feel like that to you?

Oh of course. I feel like when we came to this event, after our practice, I definitely felt like we were a championship contender. Of course in Pro League playoffs there's no real easy opponent, I feel like every team that's here at the moment earned their spot to fight for the trophy. G2 is going to be a formidable opponent for us.

How do you think you match up against G2?

It's tough to say. It might be a bit messy (laughs), kinda clumsy looking CS, a lot of brawling, straight up duels and stuff. It could be that way. We're just looking forward to playing a new team as a new team.

Is it important for you to get that experience? Because in a tournament like Pro League you get the chance to play a lot of different opponents. Is it good for a team like you that's in the early stages of development?

Of course. Playing new teams, expanding the map pool a bit, playing versus different styles. It's super important for the early stages of a team to experience all of that.

I just wanted to talk more generally about Liquid. This version of Liquid has hit the ground running, you looked good even in Fall Groups. How do you think you were able to get up and running so quickly?

I knew I was becoming captain and spent my whole player break scouting and creating the playbook. Understanding how I want to play individually, how I can still play my game and have impact as a caller, trying to get the most out of YEKINDAR, implementing ultimate, and finding the space about who should be aggressive between NAF and jks. I think we had very good planning from the beginning, so there was a good foundation for the people who joined.

Now that you've had a bit of time with mithR—

Ah good! It's good that you mentioned him (laughs). Yeah mithR is super important. My first calls with him were three and a half hours long, me and him just kicked it off right away in terms of how we viewed the game tactically, how he wants to coach, how he wants to work with me. It was a very pleasant conversion between him, our analyst and our… I guess he doesn't want to be called a mental coach or anything, but Edward, our mind and body coach. Those three together have been super impactful. I've really enjoyed my relationship with mithR so far.

mithR and ultimate in particular are probably two names most people looked at with scepticism when they first joined Liquid. Was it hard to go for people like that who are seen as a risk to take onto a top team?

Not really, that's why scouting is done in the first place, you know if it's a risk or not. From my convo with mithR, I was super happy from the beginning. I was just waiting every day for him to sign the contract so I could work with him (laughs). My first convo with ultimate, I knew that he was the type of young player that I would want to play with.

Just on the ultimate point, like you say you did a lot of scouting, but was there any doubt? Because the tier of opposition he was playing against in these demos you were watching was much lower than who he is playing now.

Luckily at the time, when I looked at his recent match results, and I also watched a ton of FACEIT to gauge him from an eye test, he didn't play against bad opposition. He played against like 3DMAX, B8, and just seeing how he moved and positioned himself, when to repeek and when to not, the way he used his utility, for me it was a no-brainer. Even more so when I got to talk to him for the first time, it was only 30 minutes but I had a smile the entire time talking with him (laughs).

Last question then: are you looking to win this tournament, is that the goal now?

100%. The last goal was top eight, now we're there we need to take it a step up. Obviously Vitality was a very good team, but even then I don't think we played the best against them, there was a lot of laziness in terms of doing the small details in the game to the highest level, and we tidied that up. G2 have a lot of firepower, so we need to make sure that we show up on that day.