Liquid eliminate Complexity to leave them winless in 2025

NertZ shone bright as Liquid compounded Complexity's poor start to the year.

Liquid have put themselves within one series of progressing to the next stage of IEM Katowice, taking down Complexity 2-0 to eliminate the North American side from the tournament.

The rifle trio of Guy "⁠NertZ⁠" Iluz, Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic and Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken powered their team to a dominant T side on Inferno, which gave Liquid plenty of leeway to take a few gambles on their defense and close out the map.

Complexity won and converted both pistols on Ancient to make for a much closer affair, but Liquid were too hot to handle in gun rounds and ultimately were the better team, eventually sealing the deal 13-11.

A final lower bracket bout awaits Liquid, where they will play the loser of FURIA vs. Wildcard.

Date	Matches
IEM Katowice 2025 Play-in
31/01/2025	Liquid 18:30 Wildcard	Match

NertZ continues to shine

In signing NertZ in favor of an ailing Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis in the off-season, Liquid had made a clear upgrade to their squad on paper. The Israeli rifler has confirmed such with his performances on the server, topping the scoreboard once again today and racking up a 1.21 rating across the year thus far.

Questions abounded as to how the roles would shake out on the T side for Liquid, but thus far their offensive halves have largely been solid, and they were so once again against Complexity.

This series was perhaps not as smooth sailing as Liquid might have hoped, they lost some silly rounds on Ancient and saw multiple clutches go against them, but ultimately the team is shaping up well ahead of their upcoming all-important qualification bout.

Complexity without a map win in 2025

The off-season was a rough one for Complexity. They opted to bench long-standing anchor Ricky "⁠floppy⁠" Kemery at the end of last year, and lost their only real star as Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski crossed the Atlantic to find greener pastures with FaZe.

Whilst their two home-grown signings, Danny "⁠Cxzi⁠" Strzelczyk and Nick "⁠nicx⁠" Lee, have shown glimpses of promise, as a team Complexity have fallen short in every map they have played to date in 2025. This leaves the team lacking for VRS points.

"Of course [we are] disappointed, no one would be happy with losing every single game," Johnny "⁠JT⁠" Theodosiou told HLTV after his team's elimination. "I know we're in a learning phase and all that, but we need at least a few wins for our ranking and the new VRS system.

"We still have two rookies, so we knew it was gonna be a struggle from the get-go, but the hope was to get a few wins and try and get as far as we can. Now we didn't get any win, so PGL's gonna a really important tournament for us."