nAts: “I’m not going to say that we already fixed everything – there is a lot to work on still”

An upper-bracket loss to FUT raised question marks around the new-look Team Liquid roster, particularly given that they showed a knack for losing rounds from winning positions during the defeat. But subsequent wins over Apeks and GIANTX — the latter particularly dominant — show that they’re on the right path. Following their latest victory, we spoke to IGL Ayaz “nAts” Akhmetshin.

Lee Jones: You guys looked great on Split today, do you think that’s a particularly strong map for Team Liquid?

Why do you thing you played so well in the series overall?

nAts: Yeah, we did well on Fracture that we lost twice before, and today we decided to pick Split. The Split also went fine, to be honest. So I know it was good.

After the Apeks game we were practising for the veto and that’s how it went. Tomorrow we have a match already straight after today. So kinda, to be honest, good feelings, not waiting one week before the match – actually playing straight.

Do you prefer that, keep the momentum going?

nAts: Honestly, I’m not sure about the momentum. Just when it’s the season and when there is a week [break], it’s one thing. And now when it’s a bracket I usually prefer just 2 days break, 3 days break, but not a week or six days. Something like that. 

But it’s me. I think some of the teams prepare more having a break because you have time to prepare, you have time to antistrat if you want and all of that stuff.

It feels like TL’s performances have been gradually ramping up series-after-series. Is that something you’ve felt?

nAts: The first matches, they’re always rough, to be honest. And before this VCT started, we only played one official, so we had to face the issues that we have with the team. That’s how most of the teams watch the first tournament; because it’s the first tournament people want to see what issues they have in the team.

I think the loss against Futbolist showed us a lot of things that we need to be working on.

I’m not going to say that we already fixed everything – there is a lot to work on still.

Today we did good against GIANTX, so we’re gonna keep working on everything that we can to show a better result tomorrow.

How are you expecting it to go against BBL tomorrow then?

nAts: I’m going to be playing against my ex-teammate Jamppi, so it’s good to play against him. I don’t know how it’s going to go, to be honest, because we were focused on today’s game even though, yeah, we were thinking about if we win, what’s going to happen – who we’re going to be playing against.

But we’ll see how it’s going to be. That’s why I like this more, when you play the next day, because that’s a different feeling rather than having a week to prepare everything. You go straight, you insta-play straight after. As BBL also – they played yesterday and now they play one day after. So it’s interesting, at least for me.

Lee Jones: Touching on that FUT loss. Analysts focused on Liquid’s ability to create positive situations in many rounds only to lose them from winning positions.

Is that something you noticed, has there been things worked on to fix it?

nAts: Against FUT, I’m not going to touch Pearl because they played well and I think we we didn’t do well on that map.

On Fracture, we lost a lot of clutch situations, a lot of advantage situations that I think are what the people are speaking about. And yeah, of course we’re going to mention that in the game if you start a first pistol round, you’re losing 4v2, next round you’re losing 3v1, and the rest I can’t remember. But that’s why I said that the FUT game showed us a lot of issues that we have, and that’s why we started working on them. And let’s see how that’s going to be going.

Do you think the type of performance today shows you as contenders to win Kickoff?

nAts: I hope so. I don’t know how the other teams are going to be watching us, we’re just doing what we can we can do. We’re just trying to show the best performance we can and who knows what’s going to happen.

Who knows what’s going to happen against BBL tomorrow if we win, who knows what’s going to happen in other matches? We’ll find out. I cannot say, but I know that we are trying our best.

Who do you think are some of the other contenders so far?

nAts: I think Vitality is doing very good, to be honest. I’m interested in how they’re going to do against Heretics.

Heretics, I don’t know. It’s the first tournament of the year and it’s also meta-changing and all of that stuff. So it’s very hard to be very consistent because a lot of stuff is changing. But I think Heretics is doing good.

I think Fnatic, the last two matches they’re doing good. We’ll see how they’re going to be playing against FUT tomorrow.

I think everyone, to be honest, I think this tournament is very… not very 50-50, but it’s a lot of things where some of the players and the teams will not be expecting because of the meta change, as I said. There are a lot of different regions playing the Tejo-Breach, for example, and in some situations — because it’s just released two weeks ago, I guess — you just don’t have as many reps because not everyone is playing that and it’s very annoying in some terms.

What do you think Team Liquid’s 2025 roster additions are bringing to the side?

I think we have a good firepower, to be honest, as a team. Patrick, paTiTek, is bringing in good vibes. I mean, to be honest, everyone is bringing some of their stuff.

The previous year we had some advantages, this year we have different advantages. And I think this year we’re working a bit more on them. We will find out how that’s gonna to be for the whole year; did we choose the right path or not?