Team Liquid Team Liquid Europe Rank #23 nAts Ayaz Akhmetshin Keiko Georgio Sanassy kamo Kamil Frąckowiak 's year has been… shaky, at best.

They finished 2021 as one of Europe's most promising teams, securing a top-four finish at Champions that year after losing to the eventual world champions.

But, in 2022, everything changed.

Liquid went from a world contender to a team just scraping by in regional playoffs. They flunked out of the Stage 1: EMEA Challengers playoffs in fourth, one win shy from qualifying to Masters Reykjavik. Lady Luck resided on Liquid's side at the beginning of the year, though, as travel issues forbade FunPlus Phoenix from traveling to the tournament. As such, Jamppi and his team played in Masters Reykjavik.

Despite the unpredictable circumstances, they lived up to their Dark Horse moniker by sweeping the tournament's Group D. Liquid eventually dropped out in the top eight, losing to second and third-place finishers LOUD LOUD Brazil Rank #2 dgzin Douglas Silva v1nny Vínicius Gonçalves pANcada Bryan Luna tuyz Arthur Andrade cauanzin Cauan Pereira and ZETA DIVISION ZETA DIVISION Japan Rank #2 Dep Yuma Hashimoto SugarZ3ro Shota Watanabe CLZ Hikaru Mizutani SyouTa Shota Aoki Xdll Yuto Mizomori respectively.

They came back home with their sights set on returning to LAN, on reaching Masters Copenhagen. Dreamas replaced L1NK midway through Stage 2, but it ultimately hindered the team and they dropped out in the top six.

But a bigger overhaul of team members was still to come. They replaced Sliggy — who had left the team post-Reykjavik — with former Ninjas in Pyjamas Ninjas in Pyjamas Inactive dimasick Dmitriy Matvienko chiwa Egor Stepanyuk Jady Yaroslav Nikolaev rhyme Emir Muminovic and Guild GC Guild GC Inactive Xaline Laure Mateos coach eMIL , and rounded out their roster with dimasick — who had been away from the servers since March.

“Coaching Guild X gave me kind of a different perspective on a lot of things because the way they operate is very different from the male teams in VCT,” eMIL said. “It kind of just gave me a different perspective on how things can be done, like more coaching on an individual level, more helping them emotionally, being there not just doing strats but more making sure the ship is sailing in the right direction.”

The change quickly bore fruits, as Liquid swept the EMEA LCQ with only a single, 2-1 loss to M3 Champions M3 Champions Inactive Jady Yaroslav Nikolaev purp0 Semyon Borchev Chronicle Timofey Khromov Redgar Igor Vlasov in the upper finals tainting their otherwise undefeated run their record. Dropping four maps across the entire tournament, they secured the region's final Champions 2022 slot.

Liquid huddle in Champions 2021 The gold lights will shine down on Liquid once again. (Photo by Michal Konkol/Riot Games)

Liquid arrive in Turkey as one of the most standout squads of the tournament. Not only are they one of the only seven teams attending Champions for a second time, they're doing it through an unpredictable playstyle that has constantly allowed them to pull out unexpecting wins.

To eMIL, Liquid's playstyle is what makes them truly unique and is, concurrently, their biggest strength and weakness. While the team's looseness and instinct-based playstyle is usually what finds them strong opening duels or allows them to win fights, that lack of structure can often lead them to losing advantageous situations in the server.

“It's like a double-edged sword, right? The biggest thing for me was kind of making sure that this energy, these instincts, they get guided in the right direction of being more consistent, more usable and hopefully we won't lose too many advantages anymore,” eMIL said. “Because the amount of first bloods we get, the amount of skill we have, is always a waste if we cannot play structured after, for example, getting entries or getting great timings like this, right? So that's like the biggest challenge, it's just how do we become more consistent with the strength that we have, just being a little bit more loose.”

One of the strongest examples of how Liquid's style works is ScreaM . His raw, aim-based playstyle made him one of the best during the LCQ. Liquid's duelist averaged 250 ACS across 312 rounds, showing exceptional talent on Phoenix despite being his least-played agent.

The recent buffs brought Phoenix back into the limelight, previously being sidelined from compositions for several months in a row. While agents like KAY/O had surpassed Phoenix's capabilities, the overall meta shifted away from him to compositions that placed Chamber on the OP and opted for the use of two initiators.

However, Phoenix's buffs and ScreaM's love for the agent were a match made in heaven, allowing him to run it down against M3C in the grand final. To a certain degree, it revitalized Phoenix's usefulness in compositions.

“I think it works on certain maps, but you have to be careful about playing too much Phoenix in a lot of maps. I would say don't be too happy about seeing more Phoenix, unfortunately,” eMIL said. “I still think even with the nerfs Chamber is still OP, especially when you have a player like Jamppi. Definitely, like, why not [more Phoenix]? I think the meta is always changing and if more people start picking up Phoenix he could become mainstream, but for now, for Champions, I doubt it. I think it won't be too much of a change for Champions in terms of what people play.”

ScreaM in Champions 2021 He's coming for you. (Photo by Lance Skundrich/Riot Games)

In eMIL's opinion, there is no easy group at Champions. Despite that, the coach has said that he feels happy and confident alongside Paper Rex Paper Rex Asia-Pacific Rank #3 mindfreak Aaron Leonhart Jinggg Wang Jing Jie f0rsakeN Jason Susanto d4v41 Khalish Rusyaidee something Ilya Petrov — the runner-up team at Masters Copenhagen — EDward Gaming EDward Gaming China Rank #1 S1Mon Hsien Meng-Hsun (谢孟勋) ZmjjKK Zheng Yongkang (郑永康) nobody Wang Senxu (王森旭) CHICHOO Wan Shunzhi (万顺治) Smoggy Zhang Zhao (张钊) and LEVIATÁN LEVIATÁN Latin America South Rank #1 Demon1 Max Mazanov tex Ian Botsch kiNgg Francisco Aravena aspas Erick Santos C0M Corbin Lee .

“If we had [Paper Rex] in the first game I would be a little bit more concerned. But I think with Paper Rex, as soon as you see how they're playing, it's pretty easy to anti them,” eMIL said. “I'm not underestimating them at all, because the way they play together is actually amazing but I respect Paper Rex. I respect them having their own style. I really like the way they play together. I think Paper Rex can be dangerous, but I also think that as soon as we see how they play I think we can play against it. So not super afraid.”

Paper Rex are often cited for their explosive, fast, unpredictable, and unreadable playstyle. eMIL disagreed with the general sentiment, stating that their macro playstyle remained the same throughout Masters Copenhagen, while they would change up mere details. Even still, he expects a very different Paper Rex in Istanbul.

Several teams have already traveled to Europe for pre-Champions bootcamps. While Paper Rex aren't one of them, Liquid have already scrimmed against other teams from Asia and from South America.

“There's not a team that's been really scary in scrims. If anything, it's been pretty equal with most of them so nobody's actually been standing out, surprisingly for me,” eMIL said. “Either they've been hiding stuff or… I don't know [laughs], but I think… Obviously I respect the teams. I think teams like LOUD are very good, the South American teams are very good, so [we're] not underestimating them but I'm not afraid of them.”

Liquid huddle in Reykjavik 2022 The international competition hasn't spooked Liquid. (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)

Much like in 2021, Riot has introduced a map into the competitive pool just weeks before the start of Champions. Last year it was Fracture, a map that has slowly made its way into team's picks. This year it was Pearl.

“As we played LCQ, obviously it's not optimal, because we haven't had this map when playing. It is a little bit of a curveball, but I think for the viewers and for the teams that didn't have to go through LCQ, I actually don't mind. I think it's something fresh, something new, a bit of an X factor. Who will actually have a lot of practice on it, who will ban it… we'll see. I think it's a good thing. It's just, for us and the other LCQ qualified teams, it's a little bit annoying of course. But that doesn't mean that we won't be really good at it coming in.”

Qualifying from LCQ, it's a last ticket, so we just have to take it and do the best out of it,” eMIL said. “I think we are a really good LAN team. I think Liquid have proven that before, without me, that they can play good on LAN. I expect us to go through the groups, and I expect us to play the playoffs, beat FPX and win everything.”

eMIL singled out FunPlus Phoenix FunPlus Phoenix Inactive SUYGETSU Dmitry Ilyushin Zyppan Pontus Eek ANGE1 Kyrylo Karasov Shao Andrey Kiprsky ardiis Ardis Svarenieks because of his brother. Emil "eMIL" Sandgren is the twin brother of Carl "Erik" Erik Victor William Sandgren, FPX's coach who led them to the Masters Copenhagen trophy on their international debut. Emil was present when d00mbr0s lifted the Copenhagen trophy, something that evoked simultaneous feelings of happiness and jealousy for his brother. Now, after a long time coaching different Valorant teams, they'll be stepping on the same stage and expect nothing less than to fight each other for their team's glory.

“[After winning LCQ] I just realized ‘oh, we're going to Istanbul. He's gonna be there, we're probably going to play each other.' It's weird, but you don't really have enough brainpower or space in the brain to think about that because there's so much that needs to be done. So it hasn't really sunk in yet,” eMIL said.

“It would be amazing to go play against [my brother] in front of a crowd and beat him and FPX. That would be on my bucket list, for sure.”

Liquid celebrate in Reykjavik 2022 Liquid vs. FPX. eMIL vs. d00mbr0s. (Photo by Lance Skundrich/Riot Games)

When asked to define Liquid's strength in a percentage, eMIL paused to think.

“Playing LCQ, maybe we're at 60%,” eMIL said. “But, I mean, Liquid at 60% of the way is still enough to win LCQ. I think that the amount of time we had was very short, also having a fifth player coming, it's a short amount of time. I think if you want to reach 90% or 100%, we definitely need more time together. We're halfway there I would say.”

A day-by-day mentality, hard work, and plans to implement consistency within Liquid's unpredictability is what eMIL believes will allow Liquid to lift the Champions trophy.

He claims Liquid is at 60% of their peak strength. The last team that said they were at 60% peak form was Gambit Esports Gambit Esports Inactive Redgar Igor Vlasov Chronicle Timofey Khromov d3ffo Nikita Sudakov sheydos Bogdan Naumov nAts Ayaz Akhmetshin , minutes after lifting the trophy of Masters Berlin, the final Masters tournament of 2021.

Liquid find themselves in a similar position heading into the final Masters tournament of 2022.

“I think if we work really, really hard and we make sure that we are at 80% or 90% for Champions, I think we'll have a good chance.”