EliGE on Liquid moving to Americas VRS: “I don’t think that the decision was made to be evil”

EliGE is arguably North American Counter-Strike’s greatest-ever player. In late 2025, he rejoined Team Liquid after over two years away from the team, restarting a relationship with the organization where he had previously spent over eight years. Since rejoining Team Liquid, his individual form has been stellar, but team results have not exactly gone to plan.

The team arrives at BLAST Open Rotterdam 2026 having made a roster change, bringing in malbsMd for NertZ. We caught up with EliGE ahead of the event, speaking to him about their practice with malbsMd so far, the team’s struggles this year, and the recent move to the Americas VRS in pursuit of a Major invite.

EliGE: “Being honest, the bar has been low”

Daniel Morris: EliGE, we come into this event in what is quite a tough moment for Team Liquid. Just talk me through what you think hasn’t really clicked for the team this year?

Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski: Well, there’s been a lot of things, to be honest. I think that it’s been harder to just focus on playing the game this year, focus on our solutions for the game. We kind of went in some different directions this year, trying different things, and obviously we had a couple of stand-in situations, which limited practice. It’s just been a lot of things here and there, kind of all over the board.

Daniel: You do arrive here on the back of that Semis placing at Roman Imperium in Portugal. I believe you’ve got DracuLAN coming up after Rotterdam. This is the new reality for teams looking to grind out those VRS points and those LAN wins. A player like yourself, you’ve been around so long. You’ve played so consistently at Tier 1 events. Can you just tell me what it’s been like, you know, having to almost go back to basics at these smaller tournaments and get back on the grind?

EliGE: I don’t mind. I don’t really think that it’s too crazy to me. Of course it’s been like, some years, but I’ve also been to some smaller tournaments here and there on Complexity… I don’t know if we went to some smaller tournaments on FaZe, maybe they were still considered Tier 1. I think the biggest difference is just not having practice rooms at these tournaments. I’ll probably have to have a better mobile setup if I’m going to be going to more of these tournaments. Because I think just not having some place to practice and to do outside-of-match work is a little bit harmful. That’s the only big difference. In terms of the actual tournament itself, I think it was completely fine. The PCs were great, the admins were nice, good, doing their job. Yeah, honestly, I think that it was fine. In terms of the humbling experience part… you know, we’re being forced to go to them, of course, for VRS, and everything like that. It does suck, but it is what is. I’m thankful that we have the opportunity, right? If we just went to the tournaments, and we lost, and then we lost out on invites, that’d be an even worse reality. So I’m just happy that we have some way to have things in our hands. We can make the Major, we can make the VRS, get the points that we need, get more maps under our belt. I’m just thankful to be honest. It’s nothing negative.

Daniel: There have been so many rumors about the future of the team. You guys do make the change recently, you bring malbs in for NertZ. Obviously the VRS implication there is that you’ll likely become an NA team for the Major invites. We have seen a little bit of criticism of that from affected teams like Marsborne. Do you have any opinion on the way that the system works that you could maybe tell us a little bit about?

EliGE: Yeah, in terms of the change, it was surprising for me as well, personally, I didn’t really expect it. At least to my knowledge, it wasn’t super for the VRS. We didn’t search out swapping NertZ for malbs because of needing to swap VRS. Before we went on this journey of, right now we’re on a month-long journey of getting enough points… We were just doing the calculations of, ‘We have to do well at these LANs, and we can still make the Major, we still have like X% to make it.’ We were just focused on making the EU VRS. Within the team, we were completely focused on getting it done in the EU VRS. And then the swap happens and I’m not going to speak on exactly why and all that stuff, but to me it wasn’t out of malice. But at the same time I also understand it completely sucks. It completely sucks for those teams that are, you know, at the bottom of the VRS ranking that are grinding for that and they went to different tournaments and they paid out of their own pocket to go to different LANs, secure visas. So, you know, whatever it is in their situation, and I completely feel for them. And there’s a chance that we can also still lose out too, and not make the VRS. But, yeah, I think it’s just like, an unfortunate situation. Of course, we have the VRS deadline for the Major invites in April, and it’s going to be kind of up to Valve. If they see something wrong with the situation. If something looks wrong to them, they’re going to make a rule about it. But I don’t think that it… I don’t think that it was made out of malice. I don’t think that the decision was made to be evil. I think that is just, like, an unfortunate thing. I gotta firstly just say that I understand.

Daniel: I don’t think anyone sort of holds it against the team at all. Coming back to malbs. We’ve seen him have his own ups and downs on G2, and he comes in now. Have you had much time to practice with him since the move? And what are you expecting them to bring to the roster that maybe you didn’t have before to make a difference for you guys?

EliGE: Yeah, in terms of practice, it was just today. Today was the first day. We got a couple maps. We got tomorrow also, we can do a full day of practice, but of course it’s going to be very limited. And that doesn’t mean that there’s no chance for us to win. Like, we can, of course, still win. We can still, like, have a good performance. We can play better than we have been. Because, you know, being honest, the bar has been low. Right? Like, we’re losing to teams that we probably shouldn’t lose to. The fans are not happy with it. We’re not happy with it either. So the bar is low. And we know our situation and we just have to play as good as we can. We can still beat these teams. We can beat Spirit. I think that it’s possible. Anything’s possible. And in terms of malbs, I’m very excited to be working with him. I think that he’s been a really good player, especially his last couple years. He’s a really good shooter, really good aimer, really good mechanics. He moves well, like, around the map. And he’s worn many hats at G2. And in terms of what he’s comfortable with and what he wants to do, I think that he’s going to be comfortable here doing what he wants, but at the same time also making some concessions. We’re also all kind of swapping around some roles. I’m swapping some roles, siuhy is swapping some roles, malbs is swapping some roles. I think NAF is also swapping some roles, but I’m not 100% sure. We haven’t even played all the maps right now. Like, like I said today, we played three maps. And, yeah, we’re kind of just focusing on the Spirit game. I think overall, just excited for it, and we just have to do what we can. I think that anything’s possible, and I think that he has a good archetype of a player that can fit us better than potentially what we had before in terms of, like, everybody’s comforts coming together.

Daniel: I think if we look at one of the big positives of this Liquid roster at the moment, it’s got to be NAF’s improvement. You know, we had quite a tough time, faced a lot of criticism last year. You’ve played with him for a big chunk of your career, and a lot of that improvement has come after you rejoined Liquid last year. What do you think is the biggest factor in him being able to come good again for the team?

EliGE: So I don’t actually play a lot of positions with Keith, but I also have a big voice on CT side, and I’m a little bit, maybe potentially more organized than what they were having before. So maybe that stability is helping him because I think that Keith is a great player. He has been my whole career. I mean, he doesn’t do anything crazy. So, when he was having a dip in form, I didn’t think that something crazy happened. I think that it’s usually just all mental or there’s like, something that ‘s preventing him from, you know, completely focusing on what he needs to do. Because the benefit of Keith is that he is really good at doing these roles that people aren’t very comfortable doing and doing them well and being a stable player in those spots that you can rely on. So I don’t think that he changed a lot of… actually, maybe he was changing a lot of spots. Honestly, I have no idea. I wasn’t following Liquid a lot when they weren’t doing as well. So I don’t know exactly what he was struggling with, but I think just stability is important. Being able to focus on what you’re doing day in, day out, and improving on that, I think is important and I think potentially with me being here maybe there was more stability with that. Maybe? Just spitballing, I don’t know.

Daniel: Coming back to BLAST Open. You’ve been dealt, like you said before, quite a tough hand with Spirit as the opener. But they obviously have been looking quite vulnerable themselves. The last time you played them it was a BO1 at the Major, and they’ve had a few changes since then too. What are you expecting from the team? I know you said that you’ve only practiced three maps today, but have you been able to prepare anything for them in particular, or are you going to prepare something for that?

EliGE: The maps that we played are prepared for them specifically. We have done like the veto of like what we think it will be and we’ve like theory about like what will be best for us considering the role changes that we’re making and the maps coming in. We want to make sure that like we’re playing a map that we can be comfortable in as well. And I think that we’re having a good map pool for that. I think that it should be a comfortable map pool that we can just play Counter-Strike and just play the game because some maps are a little bit more detail oriented that would be harder to slot someone in. So we’re taking some of these things into consideration and also what Spirit strengths are, what they like to play, what they’re most likely going to pick. And I feel confident about the potential veto that we think it’ll be. And like you said, I think that they look vulnerable, they’re not in the best space but at the same time they have donk. donk is a big factor. He’s probably going to be the best player of all time in the next decade. So he’s super strong. He’s always going to be that factor. You can’t really account for that. And we just have to play as best team CS that we can. Ping pong off each other with different ideas and making sure that we can just focus on the game and not letting someone get highlights on us or throwing away advantages as much as we can.

Daniel: Final question is just about expectations and particularly for this event. So what would you say that your expectations are coming into this event, you know, with a new player, maybe a new system, new roles. What would you say constitutes a good result for Team Liquid at this tournament?

EliGE: I can’t be as lucky to think about what I would like to have as results. For me, I think part of it is us actually working towards something that we can build off of for the future, where we’re all, like, focused on the same goal. Like I said at the beginning of this interview, I think that we went in different directions. We’re not able to focus as much on just improving as a team together. And that obviously hurt us a lot this year. So just like, the beginning of that new beginnings. That’s part of it. Second part is, obviously, we need some wins. We need to get some win to help us here. If we beat Spirit, we get around 70 points. So every game is important. We need to do well. I want us to at least get one win, and I think that would be really nice for us, especially because all the teams here are going to be strong. And, yeah, I think that would be a win for us.