YEKINDAR: "We played the best team in the world and it's OK to lose"

In the 2-0 swiss matches today at the BLAST.tv Paris Major, Liquid were drawn to play versus Heroic for the 3-0 playoffs qualification. Despite losing their pick of Inferno, Liquid came back on Heroic's Mirage and had a really close final Ancient. Nonetheless, the Americans were unable to best the current No. 1 team in the world and fall to the 2-1 bracket.

Dust2.us' Ryan Friend spoke with Mareks "YEKINDAR" Gaļinskis after the match to see how the team was feeling after that hard-fought loss and what they'll be expecting coming into tomorrow's 2-1 BO3 match.

YEKINDAR explains that both teams were happy with the map veto, with Liquid expecting Mirage as a possibility. In the first two maps of the series, both teams won each other's picks, with Ancient being close as well.

There was an expectation of Mirage. Obviously, they had opportunities to pick four different maps, if I'm not mistaken. The veto came out good for us and I think they were comfortable with it as well and it was more of a fight of momentum and preparation.

During today’s game, there was a lot of talk of Liquid’s CT-side; a lot of stacks on specific sites with YEKINDAR hold the other site solo. We wanted to know if this was something nitr0 or YEKINDAR brought to the table.

It was overall the whole team creating the plan, we understood what was working for them in crucial moments and what was not working. They were losing on Ancient, for example, all A site rounds, and it was really hard for them to go A. So, we were stacking towards B. Other than that, Inferno... we lost the half, I think 11-4 or something like that. And I was like, “OK, let's stack 4 on A and I'm going to be on B at balcony, [NAF] just throw nades on B”. You need to gamble a bit to win a comeback like that on a T-sided map.

With communication looking strong for the team today, and coming back from quite a deficit on Inferno, YEKINDAR explains that they knew it were not focused at the start of the match. After the unfortunate loss on Inferno, they regrouped, worked out what was going wrong, and managed to come back on Mirage.

It was OK. It's just that we understood that at the start of Inferno, 1-7 or 1-8, we were not focused. Those rounds and a lot of the situations we could have won, and it was a matter of a little bit maybe stress. We understood what was happening and why it was happening, and even though we lost the first map, we came into Mirage with a clear head and went into Ancient with a clear head. Obviously, props to Heroic, they played really good on all three maps and congrats to them for qualifying to the playoffs.

Despite taking the loss today, the team is happy with their performance and is okay with losing to the best team in the world. They will be learning from this match and coming back stronger.

You play and you learn. During a tournament, you can't treat something as the end of the world, especially from a position that we are in. We were 0-2 and now we're 2-1. If we are getting mad and tilted after this game... I mean, we played the best team in the world and it's OK to lose. We know what to fix and we will be back, stronger.

At the time of the interview, it was not yet known if Liquid would be playing Monte or Into The Breach, so both were discussed. YEKINDAR isn’t sure who they would rather play and wouldn’t dismiss either as easy opponents but says they will be doing their best no matter the opponent.

Well, I mean, if they're here, at the 2-1 scoreline, that means they are here for a reason. Obviously, many people would consider them maybe weaker opposition than, for example, FaZe, G2, Heroic, or any other top five team because of recency... I mean, I think there are obvious reasons why, but if they are here and if they're 2-1, they definitely deserve it, and we will try our best. It's going to be a best of three. So, I'm not really sure who would we prefer to play, but I think both teams would be interesting to play against.

With lots of questions in the community about who’s calling or leading on which maps and how the hybrid nitr0-YEKINDAR leadership is coming along, we wanted to see if we could gain any insight but unfortunately, he chose to keep it confidential for now.

Confidential information.

Liquid will be facing Into The Breach tomorrow at 01:30PM in a BO3 for playoffs qualification. The loser will still have one final chance to qualify on Tuesday.