As expected, Liquid got trashed by C9. Which is ok, C9 is fresh off winning a major and Liquid still needs to get comfortable with NAF and with Nitr0 in a new role. Lots of valuable info for the coach, I guess.
I hope they'll beat Torqued today, and than it's up against a danish squad.
Edit: Also, great tourney again, lot's of fun to watch.
NAF over JDM already looks like such a signficant upgrade in terms of skill. JDM should have been cutted 12-18 months ago. Still feel the team might need a a higher tier AWPer and not convinced about Steel yet.
Never made sense to me how they were willing to import a mediocre rifler in Pimp and never tried to import a European AWPer given how the NA scene lacks AWP talent.
Fucking awesome! And what a stark contrast to the first map vs NIP at the beginning of the tourney!
On February 12 2018 04:32 Hider wrote: NAF over JDM already looks like such a signficant upgrade in terms of skill. JDM should have been cutted 12-18 months ago. Still feel the team might need a a higher tier AWPer and not convinced about Steel yet.
Never made sense to me how they were willing to import a mediocre rifler in Pimp and never tried to import a European AWPer given how the NA scene lacks AWP talent.
It's easy to say this now, but I think as an org you don't want to swap out players all the time, and JDM was one of the best awpers for a few months, so they probalby hoped he would come around. And honestly, although it was sometimes painful to watch, I'd rather have an org that gives a player a chance and does not just cut him when I he doesn't put up numbers for a while.
On February 12 2018 16:48 phagga wrote: Fucking awesome! And what a stark contrast to the first map vs NIP at the beginning of the tourney!
Yeah i would argue that this is because they are just playing more and more together. Must have been a shock to have to major with Zews after playing with Steel, then soon as that finishes Steel comes back in, but not only that JDM goes and NAF comes in. So i think they just started rusty and getting used to eachother. Now they are finally looking like they have some world beaters in the team. NAF looks like he can pull some clutches, Twist we know can, Elige can go off on one and Nitro is just always solid. Steel rounds it off nicely with a bit of experience and something new.
In all honesty, C9 and Liquid are really good prospects for the scene for NA now, in terms of getting far in every tournament they play if they keep up this level. I mean SK with Boltz is 10x better than SK with Felps and C9/Liquid bumped the off NO problems that tourney.
It's easy to say this now, but I think as an org you don't want to swap out players all the time, and JDM was one of the best awpers for a few months,
Which months are you talking about?
Statistically speaking he was - throughout any 3+month period - averaging around 1.0 rating1 from 2015. I think the issue is that he had 1-2 good offline performances for CLG and then he got massively overrated.
And this narrative kept sticking throughout the years, like he was this type of superstar AWPer who just wasn't set up correctly at liquid. Whereas the actual data showed that he was just performing close to his historical expected level in liquid.
At the time he was an upgrade over Koosta, however, however dependant on his buyout fee, I would much rather have invested that money into EU awp talent.
The problem I have with Liquid is that I think their player acuqistions are too narrative-driven. E.g. who do the community think are good players. Instead of looking at which players actually has produced great output (statistically speaking) over the last 3-6 months given the level of opposition.
Contrasting this with NAF, I think NAF over the past 3-5 months has played like a top 20 player in the world. So just from a pure skill perspective I think he is the first pick up in a long-time by liquid where the data sufficiently supports TLs decision.
It's easy to say this now, but I think as an org you don't want to swap out players all the time, and JDM was one of the best awpers for a few months,
The problem I have with Liquid is that I think their player acuqistions are too narrative-driven. E.g. who do the community think are good players. Instead of looking at which players actually has produced great output (statistically speaking) over the last 3-6 months given the level of opposition.
I would tend to disagree. When they signed jdm he was just off a couple of ok performances, including MLG Columbus. It all depends on what they were actually looking for. What would have been your go to AWPer in the NA scene at that time if you were looking for a dedicated AWP? I don't think there was any that really came close and while not a very good awper, jdm was the available one.
Plus looking at past performance is one thing, but it's not the only factor a team considers before signing a player (and there's a couple more before we get down to "narrative").
Liquid also tried to pick some rising talent with koosta before jdm, but it failed horribly and we can think of two reasons why: first he allegedly was monitored and micromanaged way more in TSM and seemed to thrive in that environement, whereas in Liquid he was handed more autonomy and failed to deliver the same level in these conditions. And then there was S1mple.
Out of curiosity, who else do you think they picked based on "narrative" (and what are your arguments supporting that this was the case)?