Liquid has placed Mareks ‘YEKINDAR’ Gaļinskis on the bench, marking the conclusion of the aggressive rifler’s 26-month tenure with the Dutch organization since his signing.
The decision follows Liquid’s performance, which culminated in a quarter-final spot at the Perfect World Shanghai Major, marking a continuation of the team’s steady improvement since bringing on Roland ‘ultimate’ Tomkowiak, Justin ‘jks’ Savage, and Torbjørn ‘mithR’ Nyborg during the summer off-season, along with Russel ‘Twistzz’ Van Dulken stepping into an in-game leader position.
Even with impressive performance over the last six months, where Liquid primarily lost only to the top six teams globally and only qualified for playoffs in Shanghai and ESL Pro League Season 20, YEKINDAR’s individual performance continued to be a significant concern that both he and the team found challenging to address.
He initially filled in for Liquid in June 2022 before officially signing in October. Players have acknowledged that he contributed to lifting the team out of a challenging period by updating their playbook and sharing his experience from Virtus.pro.
The squad quickly achieved a second-place finish at the BLAST World Final 2022, reached the semi-finals at IEM Katowice and the BLAST Fall Final, and advanced to the playoffs at the BLAST.tv Paris Major, driven by YEKINDAR’s strategic and personal input.
The Latvian player moved from being a secondary voice within the team to taking on the role of full-time in-game leader after Nick ‘nitr0’ Cannella left the roster during the following summer break, but he struggled to achieve success with the lineup consisting of Aleks ‘Rainwaker’ Petrov and Robert ‘Patsi’ Isyanov, leading to a significant decline in the organization’s performance.
YEKINDAR’s performance deteriorated, and even after passing the leadership to Casper ‘cadiaN’ Møller and ‘Twistzz’, he was unable to bounce back. The team led by ‘cadiaN’ failed to qualify for the PGL Major Copenhagen following a lackluster performance at the Americas RMR, and they only reached the playoffs on two occasions during their recent appearances at IEM Chengdu and ESL Pro League Season 19.
Despite the team producing improved outcomes in the second half of 2024, the Latvian still faced challenges, and his performance and style of play further underscored those problems.
Liquid Announcement
Liquid roster is as follows:
- Keith ‘NAF’ Markovic
- Russel ‘Twistzz’ Van Dulken
- Justin ‘jks’ Savage
- Roland ‘ultimate’ Tomkowiak
- Torbjørn ‘mithR’ Nyborg (coach)
- Mareks ‘YEKINDAR’ Gaļinskis (benched)
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