"This is the year I should not qualify. And that's exactly why I want to prove the opposite" - Team Liquid nAts after first win at VCT EMEA Kickoff

Team Liquid’s battle against Karmine Corp was a show of determination and grit. After a close series loss the previous week to Team Vitality, Liquid found themselves now in the Middle Bracket of VCT EMEA Kickoff with two lives left to battle to Santiago. Backs against the wall after a dismal Map 1 performance, Liquid turned their fortunes around to complete the reverse sweep, propelling themselves with their first official win of the season.

Following the conclusion of their series, Strafe Esports sat down with Team Liquid IGL and captain Ayaz “nAts” Akhmetshin to reflect on the series as a whole, the challenges of heading into a new season with a substitute for Week 1, his evolution as a leader for the team, and so much more in this exclusive interview.

*The following interview has been lightly edited for readability

“We managed to show resilience, even after the stomp”

Team Liquid immediately found themselves on the backfoot in Map 1 with Karmine Corp coming into the series with a point to prove. Following their loss the previous week to NAVI, the Blue Wall was off to a flying start, dismantling Liquid’s Attack side 11-1 in the first half. Liquid’s win on the second pistol offered little reprieve as Karmine Corp immediately answered back, stealing the conversion to force match point. With their economy broken, Karmine Corp stormed towards a 13-2 victory to start off the series.

Split was a far stronger affair. Liquid kicked things off with 4 straight rounds before it was answered back with 3. The back-and-forth continued with Liquid holding the narrow advantage of 7-5 going into the second half. From there, despite Karmine Corp winning the pistol and conversion to equalise, the heroics from Liquid’s side stabilised their Defense, resulting in a fairly clean 13-8 victory to bring the series to a third, decider map.

Unfortunately, the early portions of Breeze appeared to carry the same hallmarks as Abyss, with KC off to a strong start, winning 6 straight rounds near the start to lead 7-1. Liquid did manage to stabilize near the end of the half, however, winning 3 of the last 4 rounds to bring it to a more manageable 4-8 scoreline. Shockingly, it was on their Attack where Liquid truly showed up. Karmine Corp’s Defense was only able to put up 2 more rounds. Despite a brilliant attack side, their Defense was caught lacking that day as Liquid closed them out 13-10 to win the series.  

Congratulations on the win today. I’d like to start by asking what are your initial thoughts coming off this series?

nAts: Thank you so much. I mean, the win is good. It’s good to have a feeling of winning the match, especially after the last very close match. A lot to work on for the next match. I don’t know whether it will be Fnatic or FUT but hopefully in these upcoming days, we’ll manage to fix that stuff and we’ll come back stronger.

Could you take me through the series? What was happening behind the scenes in the comms during the series? Let’s start with what happened on Abyss.

nAts: I don’t think anyone was happy from having a performance 2-13. I think it’s a little not good to have that kind of performance, especially after the way we played the first match and now going to that match. But we managed to show resilience, even after this stomp let’s say, on the first map. We managed to show the rest of the maps. 

What was the main challenge on the last map of Breeze? Karmine Corp had a strong start, but you guys pulled off the comeback.

nAts: We were trying to understand the way they’re going to play the map. Nowadays, there are too many different comps, and you need to understand what the teams are fighting for. That’s why it took a while to understand what their key factors were to win with this composition and that’s why it was like that.

“We’re still trying to understand each other more”

It’s hard to frame Liquid’s off-season as a success at this early part of the year. Despite some promising names joining the roster for 2026, it’s undeniable that the VCT EMEA 2025 winners lost a lot of experience following the departure of much of their core.

Speaking with Derke, he mentioned one of the challenges for teams that get the bye and skip round 1 is that you don’t get that warm-up. You had Vitality as your opening match, and you didn’t even have your full roster in Week 1. Talk to me about the takeaways that you brought from Week 1 into today’s series.

 nAts: I would say it’s a little bit hard to judge that because as you said, first week, we were playing with a sub. It’s a bit hard to say because for 4 players, it’s not the first match anymore but for the 1 player [wayne], it is. And 1 player can affect the whole team, so that’s why it’s kind of the first match for us.

Given you essentially had to prepare with 2 different rosters, one with Kicks and another with wayne, how was the preparation like coming into this tournament?

nAts: We were practicing with Kicks while we were waiting for the response about wayne, and the moment wayne got his confirmation that he’s coming, we were already on the big practice path with Kicks, and wayne was just coming from a different country. So, he didn’t really get to play with us and that’s why we decided to play with Kicks that game.

This off-season, the roster has lost paTiTek, trexx, keiko. Lot of experience lost. In their stead, you’re bringing in less experienced players [wayne and purp0]. Has the dynamic shifted significantly in terms of what you had to work with last year on Team Liquid versus this current roster?

nAts: I think it’s a little bit hard to say on the dynamics yet because we’re still just learning each other and that’s how it usually goes with the first tournament. You’re trying to understand each other more, especially on-stage. I’d say the dynamic is growing. It’s a bit too early to judge. Even last year, even thought we qualified to Bangkok, it took us the whole Kickoff and Bangkok, we were still evolving.

“If you’re not a leader yourself, you can’t motivate others”

After a strong first year serving as Liquid’s IGL, in which he led the team to all three international tournaments and a domestic title for the first time since 2023, nAts now finds himself at the helm of yet another crop of players. Whether he can repeat the successes from last year remains to be seen.

This is now your second year as an IGL for Liquid. Coming off the year you had in 2025, qualifying for all three internationals, what are some of the things you’ve perhaps changed about your style or improved about your calling specifically?

nAts: I think I’m just getting more and more used to the role. But there’s a lot of different challenges happening every time, especially with the roster changes. Not specifically from the IGL-ing part, but from the leader. It’s like you need to learn new people, you need to understand how people work. That’s why I kind of like the role. No matter how maybe it’s hard or not in some specific moments, but at least it’s interesting. 

They showed us a little snippet of your speech after Map 1 inspiring your team. We’ve seen quite a few speeches from you, even last year. Where do you get the inspiration to motivate your team in this manner? Do you draw inspiration from someone, somewhere?

nAts: No, I think it’s about myself. I believe that if you’re not a leader yourself, if you’re not motivated, and you don’t bring that energy, I don’t think you’ll be able to motivate the rest of the people. You can’t really fake it, I would say. Because the moment someone fakes it, you feel it. You can feel that it’s not natural. So, I wouldn’t say I take it from someone, but I’m reading, watching a lot, so maybe I’m just taking it into me somehow.

Quite a few rosters at Kickoff look quite promising so far. Which team do you see as the most underrated potentially coming into this tournament?

nAts: I think we need to judge based on the tournament. We can see in the Upper Bracket that its Gentle Mates, NAVI, BBL there. Vitality, most people expected them to be there. But the other three, those are teams who rebuilt or came from a different, lower league, and they’re showing really good things right now. So, I would say all three of them, because there’s a chance that one of them will qualify via the Upper Bracket.

As you said, it’s still early days for this roster. In terms of Kickoff as a whole, what are your expectations for the team? Did you set a bare minimum?

 nAts: I would like to qualify. I think everyone would like to qualify, but it’s about managing to show what level we’re really at and managing to show that separation between practice and the stage. And I think on Abyss, we didn’t manage to show that, but later on, we were playing better and better. So, I think if we show better results, that’s already a good achievement to have for the first tournament for this roster, because this team is still very young, I would say.

What about expectations for the year as a whole? Do you have a goal where if you look back on 2026 by the end of it, you’d say ‘yeah, we did pretty well. I’m happy’?

nAts: For me specifically, people know that every year, one year I qualify, the next I don’t. So, this year is supposedly the year I should not qualify. And that’s why I want to prove the opposite for myself. And if we qualify, I really want to go away from the Group Stage and go into Playoffs because I don’t remember the last time I played Playoffs on the international stage. If we manage to achieve these two goals this year, it’s already a good year, at least for me. But for the roster, I think we can show good results, but we need to work hard to do that.

Final question, for the fans, what’s the one thing you can say to them to expect from this roster?

nAts: As you saw today, we’re going to fight until the end, every time we play. Whatever happened on that Abyss, we didn’t let that affect us, and we’re going to do that match after match.

 

Featured Image Credit: Wojciech Wandzel/Riot Games