EliGE: "As long as we're playing well together, I think that we could beat anybody"

Liquid have made it into the final day of Stage 2 after starting the Major with two losses on the first day. They've defeated MIBR and TYLOO in elimination games, and the Chinese team proved to be a tough team to beat.

Dust2.dk writer UncleJakes spoke to Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski right after the TYLOO game on behalf of Dust2.us, and asked the star about the game, how he's fitting in Liquid, and how they're feeling coming to the 2-2 match.

You can find the entire interview below.

This was a wild game. How are you feeling coming out with a W in the end?

A big sigh of relief. That's the main thing. It was really, really close. I pretty much wasn't doing anything on the first two maps. Finally did something on the third map. Thank God, took me long enough. And yeah, just glad to still be in it.

That last round was chaotic, too. Can you explain what happened there?

So, that round, we took all of Banana control, and we were just going to be doing a slow B exec. I saw that NAF was walking up short, so I was like, 'let's be ready to go back,' and when we started going in, it kind of went well in the beginning, but then they flashed us off. We saw one player on First, then we saw one in CT, and then NAF was already up short, and we were already going back at that moment.

I was already saying, 'let's go back A, let's go back A,' and then NAF ended up losing that duel, which was really unfortunate. We knew that he wasn't on the right side, so we could just full focus left side; even though there were two, we still won the round.

I think as soon as that happened, we were in a prime position to win, because it was a 3v2 at that point. I already thought that someone was going to be coming from Banana. And, you know, it's really hard for them to clear out every single angle. So, got that kill on the mid guy, and then we just had like an unstoppable 3v1.

You got a 2-2 game tomorrow, and if you win, you're in Stage 3. But this Stage hasn't been easy so far. What can you tell me about the struggles so far in the Major? What have you been dealing with?

Well, the first day, I think that was a little bit of an off day from us. We weren't playing as good off of each other, things were just going wrong just all over pretty much. Yesterday was a little bit better [vs. MIBR], but still maybe, like 40 or 50% of what we could be doing.

We're still missing some microcomms, like hearing each other in certain situations. Actually, pretty kind of similar to the first day. And then today, I think that I was struggling individually. I think that there were some hard situations...I don't know. I honestly think that it's just that we haven't had matches for like one month before this, and we started off really slow.

Now, we kind of have to like build ourselves back into it. We have strong players, we have good teamwork, and we're all clicking. We just have to build that confidence up with each other and keep on moving forward with it.

siuhy also had a bit of a rough Major so far, individually. Have you talked about why that is happening? And also, as a teammate, can you do anything to help with that, or is it solely on the individual to bounce back?

I think, at a certain point, it's kind of on the individual. His job is to mainly be a good captain, a good leader. He doesn't need to be dropping 30 kills every map for us to win. He just has to make sure that we're playing well as a team and we're having good team play.

It's not like I can feel that he's playing poorly as I'm playing next to him. Of course, he got glocked that one round, which is very unfortunate, but it's not something that I'm feeling actively.

So I mean, anything that he can do to improve, that's kind of like on him. But, I think it's just lifting people up, doing everything that we can for him, and if he's feeling something in the game that he wants to do individually, it's making sure that we can make that happen. That's what we have to do as teammates to try to lift each other up, make sure that we don't feel bad if some unfortunate thing happens.

It's been about three months since you rejoined Liquid. Do you feel like you're fully online on the team and have been totally incorporated into flashie and siuhy's system? Or are you still ironing things out and going through a process?

I think that we have a good foundation and groundwork. Some things are still a little bit new to me, like Ancient, for example. Ancient is completely new on the T-side. But, other than that, I think that the foundation is there, and now it's just about putting into practice everything that we talked and getting comfortable with it.

Playing matches and playing on LAN are different than playing in practice. So, I think it's just about getting a good handle on it, which is something that's going to have to come naturally as we play more and more matches together.

But, in terms of structure, I think that we have a really good structure, and I think that we can play well together, and it's now on us to act on it.

How are you feeling coming into tomorrow's last game of the stage?

I'm kind of still winding down from the game today, but tomorrow is a new day. Everything is reset for tomorrow; it doesn't matter what happened today. All that matters is that we're there and that we're playing in that match.

It doesn't matter that today was tough, it doesn't matter that the last map was close. It doesn't matter that I sucked on the first two maps. As soon as you go to the next day, you just have to reset and play as well as you can that day.

From what I understand, we play against Astralis, and they beat Aurora, a big upset. But it doesn't matter, I think, as long as we're playing well together, I think that we could beat anybody.

We just have to keep on ramping up, like what we can do together as a team, and lifting each other up. I think that we did that during the series vs. TYLOO. I think that kept each other, and then we kept on fighting forward. I'm proud of the guys, and everyone's playing as best as they can, and we just have to carry that on.