How YEKINDAR is rediscovering his best form with FURIA

After a tumultuous Liquid spell, the two-time HLTV Top 20 star is playing some of his best Counter-Strike since his Virtus.pro days.

As Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis hops on a video call to reflect on a crazy couple of months, he is the picture of focus and security, a man irradiating positive energy.

Just 24 hours earlier, he helped FURIA to their first Major playoffs in almost three years, and he sits among the best-performing players in Austin with an average 1.32 rating across stages two and three.

YEKINDAR has played such a pivotal role in FURIA's resurgence that Yuri "⁠yuurih⁠" Santos has no problem describing his teammate as "the best thing that has happened to us."

It has been a fantastic turnaround in fortunes for YEKINDAR, whose stock at the end of 2024 was at an all-time low after a disappointing year on a lackluster Liquid. The squad missed the Copenhagen Major and struggled to make deep runs, with YEKINDAR playing his final match at the Shanghai Major in the quarter-final loss to eventual champions Spirit.

"Happiness never really left in Liquid," he tells HLTV. "I think it maybe faded a little bit.

"But I still enjoy the game. I still enjoy travelling for tournaments. I enjoy practicing. I enjoy preparing for matches. I'm truly happy doing all of it. The difference is that now, it's multiplied by ten because the team is playing well, I'm playing well and we are winning games."

As YEKINDAR begins discussing his time on Liquid, he quickly points out, matter-of-factly, that the general perception that he underperformed during his entire stint under the North American organization is inaccurate.

Recruited in October 2022 after a stand-in period following the benching of Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon, the Latvian was indeed a steady performer in his first year donning a Liquid jersey, during which the team regularly made playoffs and even contested two finals.

But things "started going badly" in the summer of 2023, when YEKINDAR became the de facto IGL — a role he had tried out on certain maps during the Paris Major — and Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella and Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski made way for Robert "⁠Patsi⁠" Isyanov and Aleks "⁠Rainwaker⁠" Petrov. The roster underperformed so badly that within four months, the Liquid management pulled the plug on the experiment and overhauled the squad.

YEKINDAR admits that it was "a complete failure as a leader," one that took its toll on his confidence.

As four new players came in and the IGL duties were delegated to Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller and later Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken, the team " shifted from one direction to another, with completely new personalities," without what YEKINDAR describes as "characteristic clashes," such as the stylistic overlap between Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic and Justin "⁠jks⁠" Savage, ever being fully addressed.

Those are less-than-ideal conditions for any player to perform, let alone one down on confidence, but YEKINDAR has no use for self-pity. "Even in those situations, I definitely could have performed better and been better as a teammate and player," he says.

YEKINDAR ultimately describes his Liquid shortcomings as  "a consequence of unfortunate events, maybe of unfortunate mental struggles and maybe to some degree burnout."

"I would not say that it was Liquid's fault that I was playing badly, or that it was any of the lineups' fault or any of the players' fault," he adds.

As the year went on and the team remained wildly inconsistent, YEKINDAR became a lightning rod for criticism.

"I would say social media is a demon," he says. "Even if you try to ignore it, it comes back to you in some way: through a friend, family, a teammate, whatever.

"As much as you want to ignore it, it's impossible. I feel like the community is sometimes harsh on players. But at the same time, it's esports, and it's something people stand for, and I understand if their favorite team is losing because shitty YEKINDAR is dying every round or whatever.

"But it got to a point where, I think, it was a vicious cycle of just trying to grind more, to find solutions. And when the solutions didn't come, you only feel worse and worse, especially with a lot of changes to the team. You cannot find your balance because of the many changes. It's different every time. Then you try to switch roles. You try to think you're a versatile player, but you're in a completely new role that you need to learn, and then maybe you switch back to a different role.

"There were many different things that made the problem worse, I would say."

It's not the first time that YEKINDAR has spoken about the social media abuse players face. As recently as the Shanghai Major, he revealed that he had been away from social media "for a long while because the community just eats you alive."

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

He did not reveal it at the time, but by then, he was already in a much better mental space after visiting with a  neuropsychologist, provided by the Liquid organization. He enjoyed an uptick in form at the Major, where he averaged a 1.06 rating.

"It completely changed my perspective on life and the game," he says. "I'm super thankful to Liquid for that.

"It gave me a huge boost in self-confidence. Something just clicked in my head, and I started seeing life differently.

"Before the Major, I actually felt a lot better compared to how I had felt throughout the year. I felt during the Major that I was on an uprise in form and mental state."

After his benching from Liquid, YEKINDAR had a few opportunities come his way, but nothing materialized in the end. As the season got underway, he concluded that he wasn't going to be competing anytime soon and decided to take a break from the game. It was an opportunity for him to travel with his girlfriend, who had tried to obtain a visa to live in Latvia for a year and a half. She was finally able to move in with him in March.

It wasn't until that break from the game that he realized how exhausted he was after years of relentless grind.

Looking back, YEKINDAR believes it was a blessing in disguise that he couldn't find a new team at the start of the year.

"I think those two months of a break helped me a lot in terms of setting my standards, getting to the headspace I want to be in," he explains.

"After two months, the hunger for the game came back. I knew I wanted to play."

The offer to play for FURIA came after his agent approached the Brazilian organization inquiring about a potential interest in his client following Danil "⁠molodoy⁠" Golubenko's signing and the switch to an international roster.

It was, YEKINDAR says, the "perfect solution" for both parties: he would get the chance to prove himself again and play the Major, while the team would land a Russian-speaking player that could help molodoy settle in. And neither party would have to commit to a long-term deal they were unsure of.

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YEKINDAR: "We're always joking that FalleN was playing the wrong role for eight years"

The new-look FURIA roster surpassed all expectations on its debut event, PGL Astana, where they finished in fourth place and took maps off The MongolZ, Spirit and Aurora.

FURIA were brought back down to earth soon afterward as they crashed out of IEM Dallas in 9th-12th place, though YEKINDAR notes that the team did not take those results into account because of the short turnaround between the two events.

But as much as FURIA's Dallas run came with an asterisk, the alarm bells were ringing in the team's camp: with only two weeks remaining until Stage 2 of the Major started, the team realized it had hit a wall in Astana.

"We started having differences," YEKINDAR recalls. "People were having different approaches and different ideas for the same thing.

"That's something we worked on a lot in our bootcamp in Miami. We tried to systematise things, to get everybody on the same page and with the same understanding of what we believe in as a team.

"It's something I think has given us an insane confidence boost, when everybody knows what's happening on the map and what we're answering it with."

YEKINDAR, with all the experience he has gained in his career, has had a big hand in improving communication. As Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo gave up the AWP and began to play more anchor positions, like on Mirage, it became much harder for him to call the CT sides, and other players had to step up and help run the defense. That is YEKINDAR's specialty, something he used to do on Virtus.pro and on the early and late days of his Liquid stint.

Even though his future beyond the Major is a mystery, YEKINDAR says everyone on the team has been very welcoming.

"They don't treat me like a stand-in," he notes. "They treat me like a player who is going to be here for a long time.

"FalleN instantly recognized my strengths in-game and communication that the whole team can utilize. They didn't come in saying, 'We're going to play like this.' They were ready to listen. And we've found a sweet spot for every player to get to a couple of different play styles we're all comfortable with."

Part of YEKINDAR's job has also been, as a fellow Russian-speaking player, to help facilitate molodoy's integration. This is the Kazakh AWPer's first international challenge, and while inside the server, he can resort to CS slang to communicate with the team, he still sometimes struggles to convey his thought process in English outside of the game, like in theory sessions. But he is a fast learner, and he can often be seen using Google Translate to get acquainted with new words and leap over the language barrier. For YEKINDAR, this has also been an opportunity to pick up some Portuguese. He is on an 11-day streak on Duolingo.

FURIA waltzed through the first two stages of the Major, losing only one match, a 13-11 BO1 against paiN, in the process. They appear to be improving with each game, securing their playoff qualification with a dominant 2-0 victory over Virtus.pro in a series in which they conceded only eight rounds.

YEKINDAR attributes the team's run so far to the solid foundation established during the bootcamp in Miami — a process he describes as the "reconstruction" of their playbook. It was an uncomfortable undertaking that took approximately ten days but bore instant fruit. During the final days of the bootcamp, YEKINDAR says the team lost "maybe" one scrim. "And we played strong teams," he notes.

"Of course, they could be trolling or practicing something, but it gives us inner confidence in what we believe in," he adds.

"We came into the Major ready. We knew our strong maps, what we were weaker at, and what we needed to work on during the Major."

At the time of speaking, we're still a day away from the end of Stage 3, so YEKINDAR doesn't know yet which team he will face in the quarter-finals. The results of the final Swiss round would put FURIA on a collision course with paiN, giving YEKINDAR's team the chance to get revenge for the Stage 2 loss.

Date	Matches
BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025
20/06/2025	FURIA 02:20 paiN	Match

How far does YEKINDAR think FURIA can go?

"From day one, I've said that if you don't believe you can win the Major, you should not come to the event," he argues.

"Anything can happen at a Major. Majors always have completely different storylines. There have been many underdogs that have won Majors. If you think about Outsiders or Gambit, or GamerLegion's Cinderella story in Paris. Majors always give you surprises.

"We, as a team, have always had the approach of, like, 'This is Major magic. We believe in Major magic.' It doesn't matter how dire things might look, we know we can always come back, we can win the map, we can win the game, we can do this and that. That's the most important part. It doesn't matter who we're facing in the quarter-finals."

What initially appeared to be a mismatched ensemble continues to defy the odds in Austin, and it's not out of the realm of possibility that FURIA make it all the way to the grand final, especially considering they have been placed on the easier side of the bracket, without Vitality, Spirit or MOUZ.

Six months after that quarter-final appearance in Shanghai, YEKINDAR looks much more like his old, dominant self. But questions remain about whether he will commit to FURIA after the Major.

Does he see himself making the move permanently?

"It's hard not to see yourself in the team when you've reached the Major playoffs in the first two months," he notes. "So, of course.

"I am considering it. But at the same time, I'm not necessarily thinking about it right now. I'm playing an event. When the event is over, that's when I'm going to sit down and figure out what's going to happen. And it's the same for FURIA. This is not a one-sided thing where I am the only one deciding if I'm going to join or not.

"FURIA need to be happy as well. I need to be happy. All that is going to be discussed after the Major."