Team Liquid’s Jamppi on beating KRÜ: ‘It was not that easy of a match as it may have seemed’

Team Liquid are moving forward in the lower bracket after defeating Latin American team KRÜ Esports 2-0.

The EU team lost to Version1 on Tuesday, knocking the pre-tournament favorites out of the upper bracket. Before the tournament, many fans on social media predicted Team Liquid to win the whole tournament, so their early descent into the lower bracket was surprising for many. They’ll need to win three more matches to reach the grand final.

Team Liquid made quick work of KRÜ Esports in their first lower bracket match, ending the first map on Split with a 13-2 score. Elias “Jamppi” Olkkonen said after the match that they had scrimmed with KRÜ a couple of times and knew how to prepare, but even though the first map looked easy, it wasn’t as simple as it looked.

“I still think [KRÜ] is a really good team,” Jamppi said after the match. “It was not that easy of a match as it may have seemed to [the viewers], it was still really tough for us, at least mentally, in the second map.”

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On Ascent, KRÜ gave Team Liquid more push-back and took the lead in the first half of the match. Just when it seemed like KRÜ was going to win Ascent, Team Liquid won eight straight rounds to close out the match.

James “Kryptix” Affleck attributed a lot of their success against KRÜ to their coach Connor “Sliggy” Blomfield. Their study and anti-stratting against KRÜ is what gave them the edge to win out the match.

Although they suffered a shocking loss to V1 in the upper bracket, Team Liquid went into this match with renewed energy and they looked more confident.

“Our comms and our mood in general were low that day when we lost the last map that day. But today we came with full focus, and comms were great,” Kryptix said. “We knew after the first map, we went outside and spoke, and as long as we went into the second map with the same confidence, we knew we were going to win.”

The match against V1 was also a good learning opportunity for Team Liquid. The team was able to study what went wrong and fix it.

“The first game against V1 was a bit sloppy from us. We figured out what we did wrong and we put it into fruition into this game,” Dom “soulcas” Sulcas said after the match. “We’re pleased with ourselves that it paid off and we performed well.”

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Fighting through the lower bracket is a tense situation for any team, but Team Liquid are taking it in stride and are coming into each match more energized.

“I think we were a bit more pumped, because we knew it was the last chance, and that got us hyped up. I feel like we definitely perform a lot better when we pump each other up and the comms are flowing, so that’s what we focused on here, and it worked,” soulcas said.

Communication was also the reason soulcas cited for the loss against V1. If Team Liquid can solve the problems that contributed to their loss to V1, it’s possible they beat them in a rematch. If V1 and Team Liquid each win their next matches, then they would face each other.

Looking to the next match, Team Liquid will face Team Vikings, a Brazilian team whom some think could be the EU team’s downfall. Team Liquid have been practicing against them during the tournament, and indications aren’t pointing in favor of Team Liquid.

“[Practicing against Team Vikings] didn’t go so well. But, we’re always confident going into the official game, so it should be fun.” Kriptix said of Team Vikings.

Soulcas had a more confident take on it and expanded on their strategy going into the next matchup.

“Their playstyle is very in-your-face. It’s not something that we play against too much in the EU, so we were a bit thrown off at the start during practice, but we’re going to prepare against them. We’re going to try to stop their fast pushes and shut them down,” soulcas said.

Team Vikings and Team Liquid will face off in the second match of the day Friday.

Lead image credit: Riot Games