siuhy: "From the moment I joined Twistzz made it clear to me that I'm taking over"

It's important for Liquid not to let the poor results at PGL Bucharest get to them, the Polish IGL says.

Liquid were sent out of PGL Bucharest in last place following losses to Legacy, Virtus.pro, and The MongolZ in Kamil "⁠siuhy⁠" Szkaradek's first event after being transfered on loan from MOUZ.

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Official: siuhy joins Liquid on loan

It was a tough start for the team, who are also without a coach after Torbjørn "⁠mithR⁠" Nyborg was let go, but siuhy doesn't want this slow start to discourage the team as they work on fundamentals and try to find where everyone is most comfortable playing.

After suffering from some positional mismatches and role clashes with former player Justin "⁠jks⁠" Savage, who was benched to bring on siuhy, and Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic, the incoming IGL knows it will take some time for the team to settle.

siuhy explains all of this and more, including how he sees his relationship with the team's former in-game leader, Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken, in the interview below.

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Tough couple of days here, but also exciting to be back in the server. Tell me a bit about coming into Liquid, the first impressions you've gotten.

I'm still getting to know the guys. We've had a very short time together so far. My goal was not to rush anything into this tournament and put expectations on this team. My main goal right now is to get to know the guys and to know what I have to work with. That's what I'm getting out of this tournament; that's something I'm focusing on right now.

What are some of the things you've learned these days? What have you gotten to know about the guys in the first few days?

We're still in a phase where we need to sort out a lot of stuff — protocols, or even fundamentals, the pure basics of a team. Before coming to this event, we tried our best to slot a lot of things in, so we're somewhat prepared for it.

Unfortunately, it didn't work out as we wanted, but right now I have a better idea of who is the communicator on the team, who likes to second call, who likes to be in the pack, who likes to be aggressive or passive, and that was kind of my main goal for this event.

We saw you play a bit of Anubis, as well. You were giving some calls there. How did that work? How was it for you, getting into that map? Did you bring your own stuff, or was it theirs?

A little bit of both. I personally like Anubis; the way the T side can be very creative and fast. I think there are a lot of nice rounds that you can piece from just a simple default. I haven't played it before. Now I'm slowly starting to understand the map a little bit more, so there are still a lot of mistakes on my side in terms of calling and individual mistakes — on the CT side, especially.

The team is doing a really good job at teaching me a little bit about Anubis. It was one of their favorite maps to play, they were really good on it, so I'm getting some insight from them.We try to balance a little bit of my stuff and their stuff. But yeah, for now I'm enjoying Anubis. It's a cool map.

I noticed NertZ anchoring and playing on the wings some. How did you get to that situation?

Like I said, it's still the figuring-it-out phase. The idea here is to figure out what type of player NertZ is, for me, and the same with Russ [Twistzz] because after a player has been IGLing and goes back to his [previous] roles he does have a bit of a different vision of the game. He does an overview of the game a little bit from above, from a helicopter perspective, so I still need to figure out what is the best position for those two players.

Who knows, maybe we'll go home and look back at it and maybe the conclusion will be that we need to change something. That's just a part of a new team; you just need to learn, play, adapt.

You're learning who is communicating, who the voices are in the team. How do you envision that moving forward? What do you think the structure is going to be from that point of view?

I know that the dynamic in the team changes a lot right now for the rest of the players. They played previously with kind of mispositions when they had jks and NAF. Naturally, you only have two big voices on the team. Here, now, we have three, so it is a dynamic change for them, and it's also something they need to get used to and see how they can use that to their benefit. It does free up a little bit of responsibility on others, but it also puts more responsibility on the guys communicating, and the guys communicating need to be put in positions that are able to use that to the best of their ability.

You're here without a proper coach. You have DeMars DeRover, who is your data analyst, so how has that been, not having a traditional CS guy there seeing everything from the outside?

It's tough without a coach, for sure. A coach has a lot of responsibility on a team. He's kind of like a filter for the team to feel good. He's also a part of all of the preparation, and sometimes not even the in-game stuff, but also outside-of-the-game stuff, like organizational stuff, so missing a piece like that, especially in a new team, can impact a lot, and we can definitely feel it as well coming into this tournament.

We're trying our best to adapt to this situation. For now, it's just a short term fix. Obviously, in the future, a coach is needed. Right now we have the analyst, DeMars, on the coach spot, and it's also a new thing for him. He's trying that out. I think he's doing a really good job.

Sometimes, a new player will come onto the team and will immediately get going. Other times, it will take a little bit of time to get everything settled and get things rolling. The first contact here was a bit rough. What do you think is the best way forward, and what do you have in these coming weeks to prepare yourself as we get closer to the crescendo of the season?

First of all, we need to acknowledge the situation that we're in as a team. I believe that we started off on the wrong foot. Everything was a bit rushed, I'm not going to lie. Me getting signed or us going to bootcamp really late for a few days, trying to squeeze in as much work as possible, and not really having any days off coming into this event straight from bootcamp.

So yeah, we started off on the wrong foot as a new team, and this event definitely doesn't help, but right now, the main idea is to acknowledge the situation that we're in and just move forward. We cannot allow this event to hurt our self-esteem, and moving forward, we need to re-evaluate what we did in the last week and change a few things, start kind of fresh, as well, although as we know the calendar is very packed, so there's not much time for big adaptations.

At the same time, we need to be very patient and use the time that is given to us at any given moment, and that's what we'll look to do. Right now, we're out of Bucharest, we have Melbourne coming up, and again, the calendar is just very tight on free days. After that, we have one or two more events, and that's going to be mostly the priority for us, when we'll have that time at home to re-evaluate those things and to work on ourselves as a team and get a good start.

How about anything that surprised you in these first days? It can be anything about characters or things in-game, something you found interesting, or a little anecdote. Do you have anything?

There are always surprises. Every team is different. When I came into this team, I tried my best to be prepared for everything, but that's just not enough when you're coming into a team and you don't really know the guys, what happened in the team, or anything like that.

I got to know the players, for sure, and their personalities. Roland [ultimate] is a very funny guy, actually. Not someone I'd talked to at events previously or anything like that, but I found out he's a very funny guy and brings a good atmosphere to the team.

We have guys that are really willing and passionate about their work, and they want to work more and more, so that's really good to see, especially for a leader to come into a team and hear this, and to see this — it's important.

It's just different for every team. Obviously, the things we had in MOUZ were a lot different than how we operate here. It's a completely different system, so also something that I also need to get used to. I need to find time to adapt to all of these things.

You're on a trial/loan, which is a unique situation. Do you feel observed? Or not observed, but that you're being watched on how you're adapting, how you're doing.

I don't look at it that way. I'm living in the moment, and I just take it a day at a time. I'm doing my best every day to help the guys and also myself. I'm not looking at what's going to happen in three months or what's not going to happen. My focus is on tomorrow and then the day after, and I'm just going to take it one step at a time.

Right now, I'm on a trial/loan, and who knows? The priority is to focus on the last one or two events when we have a little bit of time to work on ourselves. If they go well, maybe there's another loan coming. I'll do well and get another loan. Maybe I'm just a loan player. Who knows?

One of the things people say is how good of a structure Liquid has as an organization. Headquarters in Europe and North America, and plenty of people at the disposal of the team. Have you noticed Liquid as a big org in the space or not so much yet?

When I traveled to bootcamp, that's when I realized how big the organization actually is. They provide facilities around the world for you to bootcamp and practice. They want to make you feel prepared, they focus on the team's performance, they provide the needed resources, and they're open to talking about these things and to feedback, so it's a good environment to be in. One of the top orgs in the league.

You were saying how Twistzz will go back to his old roles, but he's still going to have that helicopter view. How will that relationship be in terms of calling and leadership?

From the moment I joined the team he made it clear to me that I'm taking over. That was really nice to hear, and I do feel that trust from him. We're working on our relationship. I think it's in a good spot, and it can only get better.

He's coming off of being an IGL, where your perspective just broadens above the team. You look at it a little bit differently. Now, he needs to go back to, or not go back to, but to use that experience that he has learned over the past couple of months or year from IGLing and use that to his benefit while going back to his original role.

I'm sure he's capable of doing that. I think that also opens up an opportunity for him to call a little bit more. Right now, he's also helping me with calling. He's giving ideas mid-round, at the start of rounds, which is also nice. That's how I enjoy calling, when players have ideas for themselves, so it's good to hear.

For yourself, you're talking about roles and figuring out roles. How will you lobby to get some of the roles you want?

Naturally, I'm a very communicative person, so when I'm on the server, I like to be in positions where I'm able to take control or paint a picture of what is happening for the team. To do that, I need to be in positions that allow me to do that, and those positions are usually in the middle of the map — around the rotation role —and that's where I feel the most comfortable.

Right now we're just figuring out exactly that, who's fit for what, and who paints the best picture in those scenarios. Also, some players are making sacrifices in their positions to allow others to try it, so that's kind of the dynamic right now.

Definitely, moving forward in Counter-Strike, you just need to utilize the most communicative players on the team by putting them into these positions. You see it on the top teams, and that's going to be the goal moving forward.