NAF: "There is obviously stuff we need to change"

We sat down with Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic after Liquid took their first win at SuperNova CS:GO Malta and talked about their recent events and their goals for this one.

The North American side is the highest ranked team at the event, currently sitting in the third place of our rankings, and is looking to grab their first trophy of the year in Malta. They opened up the tournament against Virtus.pro, defeating the Polish side 16-10 to book a match against NRG.

NAF and co. recovered from going out in groups at ECS S6 quickly

In our post-match interview with NAF, we quizzed him about Liquid's decision to attend this tournament, their failure at ECS and Virtus.pro's comeback attempt.

Coming here, it is obviously not the biggest tournament of them all, you are the favorite to win this and obviously, you had issues closing out tournaments, issues winning when you should've been. Is this the tournament you are coming to, in a way, to just get over the hump and get the first trophy with this lineup? I mean, TACO even mentioned something about it now in the stage interview?

I mean, there have been tournaments in the past where we felt like we should've won, but with us, you never really know. This tournament is one that we should 100% win, this is what everyone else is obviously thinking about us as well. There is really nothing other to say other than we shouldwin this event, if we don't, it is just utter failure.

Adding to that, why did you decide to come here and not skip it and focus on other things? Because there are a lot of tournaments packed together, most of the T1 teams skipped this one, why did you decide to come here?

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure, I'm not the one that accepts the tournaments or really has any say. I am the kind of a person that likes to skip events, but obviously, some of my teammates and maybe our organization would like us to attend them. I don't know, a lot of us saw Malta—I've never been to Malta, It's a very beautiful place, I like it here, it's very nice—, other than that, I don't know. We seem to be a team that wants to attend as many LANs as we can, even for myself, for the longest time I've thought that the best practice is LAN practice, playing official matches.

You attended ECS last week and from all of the tournaments you've been to, that has been the worst performance as a team overall. What did you take away from the loss at ECS?

It is obviously something you move forward from. I don't know, we get over losses pretty easily, it is just like: "shit happens". From time to time you are just going to go out last, that happens. I don't know, both of those teams played great, North and NRG, I think we were just a little bit unprepared at that event and it bit us in the ass.

We get over losses pretty easily, it is just like: "shit happens". From time to time you are just going to go out last Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic

You faced Virtus.pro here and you were 13-6 up, until that point it looked like smooth sailing, more or less. The first round you lost on the T side you saved and after that they were pushing you pretty hard from the CT side. What was the issue with closing the game against Virtus.pro?

There wasn't really anything special, we were just playing our game. I don't really know what to say about that. We were just doing what we were doing, we didn't anti-strat or anything, we were just playing our game, it was like any other normal game for us. Nothing other to really say than that we played our own game.

What we are doing against Astralis isn't working because we have been running, kind of, the same ideas versus them for the past... so many times Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic

Is that "meta" approach for your team as well? You've been struggling to beat Astralis and get big wins, do you think that you need to change anything or just continue doing what you are doing, but do it better, and that way overcome them in the end?

We've always discussed that maybe we should start playing Train or something like that, we've had discussions back and forth, obviously for myself, thinking about it, yeah, there is obviously stuff we need to change. I don't know exactly what we need to do, but obviously, what we are doing against Astralis isn't working because we have been running, kind of, the same ideas versus them for the past... so many times, I can't even remember how many times we've played them (laughs). Obviously, something needs to change, but we are coming to the end of the year, after this event, the only event we will see Astralis at is Odense for EPL. Maybe we will have something in store for that and I guess we will see how it goes.

Liquid #3 Keith 'NAF' MarkovicNick 'nitr0' CannellaJonathan 'EliGE' JablonowskiEpitacio 'TACO' de MeloRussel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken Virtus.pro #32 Filip 'NEO' KubskiJarosław 'pashaBiceps' JarząbkowskiMichał 'MICHU' MüllerPiotr 'morelz' TaterkaMichał 'snatchie' Rudzki Keith 'NAF' Markovic Age: 21 Team: Liquid Rating 1.0: 1.09 Maps played: 931 KPR: 0.73 DPR: 0.64 NRG #8 Damian 'daps' SteeleJacob 'FugLy' MedinaVincent 'Brehze' CayonteEthan 'Ethan' ArnoldTsvetelin 'CeRq' Dimitrov

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