Liquid call upon another stand-in for a tournament critical to their Major qualification.
NertZ will be missing Roman Imperium Cup VI due to travel issues and jL will play in his stead. In a last-ditch effort, Liquid signed up for this tournament last minute to save their chances of playing at the Major.
Now, it’s been announced they won’t even have their full roster.
Liquid’s horrible start to 2026
Liquid started the year by making the top 8 of the BLAST Bounty in January. In the online phase, they barely scraped through against an equally horrendous NIP.
In the LAN portion, they were beaten 0-2 by a Falcons playing with an unknown academy player. And it was downhill from there.
NAF could not attend IEM Krakow, the first truly prestigious tournament of the year. Krimbo played in his stead, but Liquid didn’t even make it out of the first stage.
At EPL, it was worse, as they failed the first stage again, this time with their full roster.
The result of this ordeal was that Liquid were not even favored to make the Major anymore. Sitting at #26 in the European VRS ranking, they need to go up 9 spots in less than a month to get to Cologne.
Pressure on jL and Liquid
After not playing professionally for 7 months, jL will have pressure to show his level in this tournament. He does it under circumstances where his team needs to win also.
Albeit against weaker opposition, Liquid need crucial wins to make it to the Major. And although the field is weak, they already lost to Gaimin Gladiators at EPL, who will be in attendance in Portugal.
