Group Liquid is benching Aleks “Rainwaker” Petrov after mere months with a European majority roster, according to a report from Ryan Friend of Dust2.us. They may play with their coach, Damian “daps” Steele, on the upcoming BLAST Fall Showdown, the report states. Whereas Rainwaker isn’t utterly reduce from the group, he won’t play within the upcoming occasion. Liquid are at present juggling roles between gamers, and there’s an opportunity Rainwaker may return to the beginning roster sooner or later.
For years, Group Liquid was the face and hope of North American Counter-Strike. Their transfer away from two legendary gamers, Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski and Nick “nitr0” Cannella, transitioning to a European-majority roster, earned the ire of many NA followers. The brand new roster vastly underperformed since then, bombing out of ESL Professional League Season 18, Gamers8, and the IEM Cologne play-in.
If Liquid does determine to finally transfer on from Rainwaker, the alternatives on the market are slim. The North American CS scene was devastated by match organizers and organizations shifting away from the area, in addition to the discharge of VALORANT pulling in gamers who had been searching for a fatter paycheck. The end result was a area with just about nothing to grind for, and no infrastructure to develop youthful gamers in a method that might guarantee a seamless transitions into tier one competitions. Many groups have already moved to Europe to apply, as Liquid already has.
With no clear path forward, and Liquid’s younger European expertise not performing as anticipated, it is going to be a tall process to get this crew on top of things. They’ll quickly be handed by NA-majority Complexity within the HLTV world rankings in the event that they aren’t cautious, they usually danger stagnating in ends in a interval once they’ve alienated their usually stalwart fanbase.
The clock is ticking: the BLAST Fall Showdown commences in mere days, on Oct. 4.
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