NertZ: "You need to be delusional to win sometimes"

Liquid's aggressive rifler has always told himself that he can win any event he attends, regardless of past results.

Liquid wanted the second half of the year to be different. After adding new coach Viktor "⁠flashie⁠" Tamás Bea, and having time to fully embed Kamil "⁠siuhy⁠" Szkaradek's style of calling, now was the time to kick on and perform to the potential the roster clearly has.

But it's not quite worked out like that. Guy "⁠NertZ⁠" Iluz and Liquid have suffered the ignominy of failing to qualify for ESL Pro League and BLAST Open (though they later received an invite to Open anyway) after losses to Sashi and academy squad VP.Prodigy. That loss prompted a frustrated Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken to go on X and say that "we are not a team."

Why the squad is struggling is a hard question to answer, but there is increasing focus on NertZ: A player who was supposed to revolutionize the team's early-round play.

After shining for ENCE and HEROIC as an aggressive lurker, NertZ's transition to more frontline map control pack roles in Liquid has been less than smooth. His rating in 2025 is just 1.06, dropping to 0.99 over the last three months, a far cry from the form that took NertZ to number 14 in the top 20 last year.

Date	Matches
BLAST Bounty 2025 Season 2
05/08/2025	ECSTATIC Finished 0:2 Liquid	Match
09/08/2025	Liquid Finished 2:1 FURIA	Match

"It's the first time in my career that I have had these numbers," NertZ admits to HLTV on BLAST Bounty's media day. "But in Liquid, I'm not going to blame anyone. The first thing is about me, why I cannot bring myself to be a better version of myself every time."

Qualifying for Bounty's top eight over FURIA, however, is as close as Liquid have come to seeing light at the end of the tunnel. And NertZ is bringing the "self-delusional" mindset he brings to every event: Even "if we played against Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi in football, I would say [that we could beat them no matter what]."

Listen to the interview here.

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Last time we spoke was in Austin, after the MOUZ (elimination) game, you said that "we realize who we are as players and what we need to do to succeed." How has that evolved? Do you still feel like you guys know what you need and are finding yourselves, or are you a bit lost?

Good question. I think, I would say that yes, we know. Unfortunately, it takes a bunch of time to implement in the server because you need to make everyone, not everyone, most of us, happy. If it was true or not, no it wasn't, right now we are not at that point where it is manageable.

You didn't make changes in the off-season either, so it's hard to imagine different results than what was before. Going into the season, what's the thought? Same setup, but how do you change the dynamic?

One big thing happened, that flashie joined the team. I played always with sAw, he was open-minded and also the last word in the team. Often, we were lacking a guy saying, 'This is how it's going to be, it is what it is whether you like it or not. You're gonna play this way.' Now flashie joined, he understood this role that we need to have someone like this in the team. We cannot make everyone satisfied in what they are doing. I feel like this is the difference between the last season and this season.

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flashie: "Unfortunately, we are not ready to face these teams yet"

Tell me a bit about flashie. He's from the B1ad3 school of coaching, working under him for a long time, what does he bring to the team? Is there structure, regimented Counter-Strike?

The number one thing that he brings to the server is structure. For me individually, it's super important that we have a structure, to be consistent. For me consistency is structure.

You also need things on the fly, and you need to feel the game, but this is the number one thing, and siuhy and flashie are doing a really good job to bring this kind of thing to the server. We are talking about these things a lot, and I feel like he brings a lot of new stuff from other teams, also from NAVI. He's doing a good job.

One more thing about not making player changes, if you don't do anything, is it demotivating as a player to say, 'we didn't try to make improvements, we didn't get rid of players for a rebuild.' It's hard to be excited about making no changes, right?

When you are losing, one too many times, I guess sometimes you are asking why we didn't do this and that. But after the last season, we had a really long talk between the team and we said we would give a chance for everyone to show themselves. Maybe it's a good thing, it's a bad thing, I'm not the guy to decide. I don't want to say we are on the right track because we just qualified for Malta [Bounty top 8], this is basic. We are not in the best spot at the moment but, yeah.

About you personally, when you were coming up you were putting up big numbers, a very exciting player to watch. Now it seems in Liquid you're a bit more muted, can't quite find that same flow, why do you think that is?

It's the first time in my career that I have had these numbers. When I am playing FACEIT I feel like I'm better than the others. But in Liquid, I'm not going to blame anyone. The first thing is about me, why I cannot bring myself to be a better version of myself every time.

I thought about it, why it's like that. I think I know what caused it, and we are trying to work on it. I don't know why I cannot give you a clear answer about it. We are trying to figure it out— not just for myself, for everyone — why it is happening for me individually.

Do you believe this Liquid can bounce back, and have a solid showing, reach some of the goals you can set? Do you have belief there is a spark to be lit in this team?

It depends, always. When I was tier five I could play against top one, I would always be self-delusional that we could beat them no matter what. If we played against Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi in football I would say this. You need to be delusional to win sometimes. In CS, when I go to an event, I say to myself, 'We're going to win no matter the past results. We're going to smash everyone.'

Right now, there's a lot of frustration that we have too many losses. In a way that's really hard to bounce back but I still have this feeling, no matter what, I don't care, we're going to win. I still have this mindset.

Tell me about the Bounty. What do you think about the drafts and all that?

I super like it. The underdog picking the big dog, kind of gambling the money in a way. This system, I like it. I never waited for Twitter to see if Liquid chose Vitality, for example. This is something I like to see.