Team Liquid's new team is terrible. If they had played with the 2021 squad, they could have gone to the Champions Playoffs.
ScreaM
Nivera
L1nk
Jampii
Dimasick( or good igl)
Vs
Nats
Keiko
Jampii
Enzo
Mistic
You guys look at the current liquid roster and don't see names like scream or nivera and think it's bad. Truth is both scream and nivera was given many chances over multiple teams and didn't achieve consistent results. They fell off and have to prove themselves again.
Enzo mistic and keiko clawed and fight in tier 2 scene and been rising with good performances. I think ppl need to realized that's how tier 1 and tier 2 works. When tier 1 team fails the weak link falls to tier 2 and tier 3 and the rising stars of tier 2 comes to tier 1
Keiko is literally the only one on that roster without international experience. Mistic has been to 4 LANs, Enzo 3, nAts 5, Jamppi 5 as well.
ScreaM and Nivera has two chances to qual to Masters and Champions this year and didn't even get close. L1nk and Dimasick haven't done anything noteworthy since their stint on TL.
If Keiko can keep up with the pace in tier 1 and Mistic doesn't team flash in the final round of the grand final (much harder now that he's on smokes), they're 100% better than the old roster.
Bad take,
Firstly, they made a massive upgrade from replacing Redgar with Enzo, and this is coming from the world foremost Redgar enjoyer. Redgar is not a bad player, but it should have been obvious to anyone watching that he wasn't really working with this roster.
Secondly, Soulcas, dudes been underperforming since he got on the roster, I don't hate him and judging by what his teammates say he is quite good but its clear that he cant (or at least hasn't shown that he can) perform under pressure.
Only real downgrade this year is Sayf, even though Keiko is a good player he has some massive shoes to fill when it comes to replacing Sayf.
i think this roster is slightly underwhelming given the potential pickups that could have been made. i think Enzo is about as good as it gets for free agent IGLs, and ill admit i havent watched a ton of Keiko. but Mistic is a pretty known quantity in tier 1, especially in big tournaments. i really would have preferred getting Burzzy and taking a chance on young talent to develop. mistic is a good player, but im afraid his ceiling is a bit too low for what liquid deserves as an org and what Jamppi and nAts are capable of as players.